The setting, which debuts at the Valli and will then stop in Modena and Pisa, focuses on the nocturnal side of the work, immersing the gloomy story in a dreamlike, dreamy and at the same time concrete atmosphere in representing the tragic loneliness of the characters. A show in the wake of a tradition revisited with grace: scenographically, two imposing floats and two stairways communicate a sense of oppression and are the key elements around which the action revolves.
" We are between Biscay and Aragon, at the beginning of the fifteenth century. - he summarizes - Fifteen years ago a gypsy woman, Azucena, to avenge her mother burned at the stake as a sorceress by the Count of Luna vassal of the king of Aragon, kidnapped one of the two children of he intending to throw it into the fire, but darkened by the horror of what he was about to accomplish, instead, inadvertently burned his own child, and ran away with the other. Today, this is the "troubadour" Manrico, that the new Count di Luna has proscribed as a follower of Urgel, a noble who has risen up against him; and the enmity between the two is increased by the fact that both love the same woman, Leonora, who corresponds to the proscribed by rejecting the powerful In the act of celebrating the wedding with her, the troubadour learns that Azucena, recognized as the culprit of the ancient crime, has been condemned to the stake, and runs to her rescue, but is arrested and sentenced to be beheaded in turn. Leonora she then tries to save him by promising to the Count while he secretly drinks a poison; but her death, unexpectedly rapid, occurs before his liberation, which is therefore brought to torture. Only at that point does the gypsy realize what is happening and reveal to the Count who Manrico is; but a moment too late, his head has already fallen. She has no choice but to cry out to the horrified Count that her revenge, that revenge that her dying mother had entrusted to her, is complete. Nocturne crossed by flashes of fire, Il Trovatore is a sort of popular ballad scripted by a music that lifts it into the skies of an incandescent fantasy, and finally truncates it without commenting on it, striking its conclusion on us like the ax on the head of a Manrico ".
