SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Verdi, Il Trovatore: (Revival Premiere)  Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff 5.10.2007 (BK)
 

Leonora - Katia Pellegrino

Cast
Ferrando - David Soar
Manrico - Dennis O'Neill
Leonora - Katia Pellegrino
Azucena - Anne-Marie Owens
Count Di Luna - Dario Solari
Inez -Sian Meinir
Ruiz - Philip Lloyd Holtham
Messenger -Simon Curtis
Old Gypsy - Julian Boyce

Production
Conductor - Carlo Rizzi
Director - Peter Watson
Designer - Tim Hatley
Original Lighting Designer - Davy Cunningham

Trovatore stands  right next to Turandot in the  list of   most-unlikely opera plots of all time so it's always hard to see it without imagining  this off-stage conversation:

Leonora to Manrico : So let me get this straight, right? You're a gypsy  from a damp camp in the mountains and you're proposing to carry me - a high-born noblewoman - off there for ever. Is that what you're saying?

Manrico: Yes, but we'll - I mean you'll  - be  really happy there.

Leonora: So you don't  have any kind of palace of your own then? Not even a small one, or  a dinky bijou manor house in a pretty, sheltered valley somewhere? And there won't be any servants  I suppose, for doing the cooking and cleaning..?

Manrico: There's  healthy fresh air in the mountains and you'll  soon learn everything you need to know about .....Wait a minute!  Do you have  a problem with simple ethnic folkways, by any chance? They're traditional, you know....

Leonora (ignoring him and going on..and on..and on) : My servants tell me  that your Granny was a witch. And what does your  Mother think about us being together, might I ask? You haven't told her, have you? Not actually told her, I mean. People say she threw a baby on a bonfire.....

It was the wrong baby of course, so that's all right then - though it must have been five years old by my reckoning -  and however grimly improbable the Trovatore story might be, Verdi's marvellous music makes this  opera  deservedly popular with audiences everwhere:  perhaps especially in Wales where it has always been a mainstay in WNO's repertoire.
 

Azucena - Anne-Marie Owens and Manrico - Dennis O'Neill

Which is why it makes excellent  sense for WNO to   complete its autumn season with this revival. After the world premiere of The Sacrifice and a brand new Cenerentola,  something more familiar, relatively cheap  - though hardly cheerful - fills the bill  very nicely and with  Tim Hatley's austerely simple sets, it's also ideal for touring.

The singing at WNO has been particularly good for the whole of this  season and while not quite offering  the four greatest voices in the world - as Caruso once said this opera needs  - there was very little musically to worry about anywhere in this production. Taking time off from his new role as Director of the Cardiff International Academy of Voice, veteran tenor Dennis O'Neill knows  Trovatore  backwards and still has the notes and power to bring off Manrico successfully. The voice is perhaps not as flexible as it once was but after more than thirty years since his debuts, this was a highly creditable portrayal.

The Italian soprano Katia Pellegrino was new to me, but she too turned in a fine performance - not quite at her best in the first half but rising to the occasion spendidly after the interval with powerful high notes, elegant vocal flexibilty and some thrilling singing in her final duet with Manrico.

Of the remaining two 'greatest voices', Anne-Marie  Owens seethed appropriately as the vengeful  Azucena and Dario Solari's strong baritone made him a convincing Luna. David Soar, one of WNO's excellent younger stalwarts,  made a fine dark voiced Ferrando  whose important contribution as narrator in the first scene sets the background to the whole work. All in all, these principals sustained the high standard set by the company throughout this autumn,  masterminded on this occasion by Carlo Rizzi - completely in his element in this kind of repertoire of course - who  drew equally engaging quality from both chorus and orchestra.

Peter Watson's production - originally staged for Scottish Opera - although paring back the plot to its essential elements and letting the music shine through, felt decidely static in the first half and even the confrontation between Luna and Manrico seemed short on drama. The dramatic impetus was also diluted  by  very slow scene changes - which felt particularly unnecessary given Tim Hatley's minimalist sets - and the curious failure of the surtitles at critical moments, including Azucena's final revelation that Luna and Manrico are brothers. These were  minor carps however and  the  singing and  musical direction made for a splendid  evening  of opera. 

Pictures © Brian Tarr
                            

Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page