[Met Performance] CID:353605

New Production

Il Trovatore
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, February 16, 2009
Broadcast

Debut : David McVicar, Charles Edwards, Brigitte Reiffenstuel, Leah Hausman




Il Trovatore (600)
Giuseppe Verdi | Salvatore Cammarano
Manrico
Marcelo Álvarez

Leonora
Sondra Radvanovsky

Count Di Luna
Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Azucena
Dolora Zajick

Ferrando
Kwangchul Youn

Ines
Maria Zifchak

Ruiz
Eduardo Valdes

Messenger
David Lowe

Gypsy
Robert Maher


Conductor
Gianandrea Noseda


Production
David McVicar [Debut]

Set Designer
Charles Edwards [Debut]

Costume Designer
Brigitte Reiffenstuel [Debut]

Lighting Designer
Jennifer Tipton

Choreographer
Leah Hausman [Debut]





Il Trovatore is a co-production with Lyric Opera of Chicago and San Francisco Opera
Broadcast live on Sirius and XM Metropolitan Opera Radio
Streamed at metopera.org
Il Trovatore received 15 performances this season
Production photos of Il Trovatore by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.

FUNDING:
Production a gift of The Annenberg Foundation

Review 1:

Review of David J. Baker in the May 2009 issue of Opera News

After two less-than-satisfactory productions of "Il Trovatore" in the past two decades, the Met has finally made a welcome course correction. Musically and dramatically this new version (seen Feb. 16) restores a degree of credibility to a work that's often dismissed and parodied as opera at its silliest.

Scottish director David McVicar is known for filling the stage with extra characters, images and incidents, as he did in last year's Salome at Covent Garden. More focused and selective in this coproduction (already seen in Chicago and due for San Francisco in the fall), he devises a "Trovatore" that's physical and aggressive - throbbing to the pulse of Verdi's score while exposing the sexual tensions inherent in the libretto.

Emblematic of that approach is the animal ferocity of McVicar's anvil chorus. All this sweat and muscle is made possible by updating the action to the nineteenth century - Zola's nineteenth century, not Hugo's - when the industrial revolution made work noisier, dirtier and more dangerous. Charles Edwards's set revolves from prison-like interiors to scorched landscapes, tinted by Jennifer Tipton's lighting to imitate a nightmarish Francisco Goya tableau The martial scenes muster as many camp followers as soldiers.

We find di Luna and Manrico literally at each other's throats, and they grab and pull at an almost objectified Leonora. But she is not the passive, overstuffed mannequin of tradition. Brigitte Reiffenstuel's costume designs recall nature's way with birds - finery on the males, streamlining for the females. That simplicity makes the most of Sondra Radvanovsky's lithe, graceful energy. Leonora's Act I narrative becomes a confession, almost a reenactment, of erotic awakening, with the heroine supine on the floor at one point. The sexual bargain struck with di Luna in Act IV acquires more urgency than usual.

Gianandrea Noseda shaped an energetic, lilting performance, nearly ideal in its flexibility and punch. The glory of the evening was Radvanovsky's Leonora. This artist's confidence as a Verdian, whatever the tempo or volume, seems to grow with each role. As in last season's "Ernani," the firm, bright tone had a pliant strength that brought phrases and sometimes entire ensembles to life. There was a bit more steel than honey in some of her top soft notes on this occasion, but she used that edge in solos, especially her soaring "D'amor sull'ali rosee" in Act IV, to dramatize the high-strung nature of this youthful, feminine Leonora.

Marcelo Alvarez, who stepped in as Manrico when Salvatore Licitra withdrew from the production before rehearsals began, made a proud, feisty hero. A certain hamminess in his diction seemed appropriate - a reminder that he did not coast at any moment in the score. There were urgent recitatives, powerful accents in the stretto with Azucena and a well-managed "Di quella pira" with panache rather than force. The preceding cavatina "Ah sì! ben mio" was warm and expressive, despite some chopped-off phrases in the cadenza.

Most of this dark, gritty "Il Trovatore" revolved around the intense, confident but physically almost immobile Azucena of Dolora Zajick. She wields a mean knife, however, and a bracing tone, with thrillingly exaggerated chest tones. Conversely, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, as di Luna, was athletic and brutal in body language but overpowered vocally, except in his mellifluous "II balen." Bass Kwangchul Youn sang a fine, strongly profiled Ferrando.



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