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Il trovatore

Il trovatore ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El trovador (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident."[1]

Il trovatore

Salvadore Cammarano with additions by Leone Emanuele Bardare

Italian

Antonio García Gutiérrez's play El trovador

19 January 1853 (1853-01-19)
Teatro Apollo, Rome

The premiere took place at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853, where it "began a victorious march throughout the operatic world",[2] a success due to Verdi's work over the previous three years. It began with his January 1850 approach to Cammarano with the idea of Il trovatore. There followed, slowly and with interruptions, the preparation of the libretto, first by Cammarano until his death in mid-1852 and then with the young librettist Leone Emanuele Bardare, which gave the composer the opportunity to propose significant revisions, which were accomplished under his direction.[3] These revisions are seen largely in the expansion of the role of Leonora.


For Verdi, the three years were filled with musical activity; work on this opera did not proceed while the composer wrote and premiered Rigoletto in Venice in March 1851. His personal affairs also limited his professional work. In May 1851, an additional commission was offered by the Venice company after Rigoletto's success there. Another commission came from Paris while he was visiting that city from late 1851 to March 1852. Before the libretto for Il trovatore was completed, before it was scored, and before it premiered, Verdi had four operatic projects in various stages of development.


Today, Il trovatore is performed frequently and is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire.

: piccolo, flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons

Woodwinds

: 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba

Brass

: timpani, triangle, tambourine, castanets, cymbals, anvils, bass drum

Percussion

: harp, strings

String

Cultural references[edit]

Enrico Caruso once said that all it takes for a successful performance of Il trovatore is the four greatest singers in the world.[43] On many occasions, this opera and its music have been featured in various forms of popular culture and entertainment. Scenes of comic chaos play out over a performance of Il trovatore in the Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera (including a quotation, in the middle of the act 1 overture, of Take Me Out to the Ball Game).[44] Luchino Visconti used a performance of Il trovatore at La Fenice opera house for the opening sequence of his 1954 film Senso. As Manrico sings his battle cry in "Di quella pira", the performance is interrupted by the answering cries of Italian nationalists on the upper balcony who shower the stalls area below with patriotic leaflets. In Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism, Millicent Marcus proposes that Visconti used this operatic paradigm throughout Senso, with parallels between the opera's protagonists, Manrico and Leonora, and the film's protagonists, Ussoni and Livia.[45] A staging of act 1, scene 2, of Il trovatore is featured in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1979 film La Luna. Music from the opera was featured on Kijiji in Canada for commercials.[46]

(1984). The Operas of Verdi: From Il trovatore to La forza del destino. London: Cassell. ISBN 978-0-19-520068-3 (hardcover); ISBN 978-0-19-520450-6 (paperback).

Budden, Julian

Grover-Friedlander, Michal (2005). . Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12008-9.

Vocal Apparitions: The Attraction of Cinema to Opera

Kimbell, David (2001). (ed.). The New Penguin Opera Guide. New York: Penguin Putnam. ISBN 978-0-14-029312-8.

Holden, Amanda

Marcus, Millicent Joy (1986). . Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-10208-5.

Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism

[in German] (1921). The Opera Goer's Complete Guide. Translated by Richard Salinger. Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing. OCLC 5128391, 1102264 – via Internet Archive.

Melitz, Leo

(1977). The Complete Operas of Verdi. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-80072-6.

Osborne, Charles

Osborne, Charles (2007). . Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12373-9 – via Internet Archive.

The Opera Lover's Companion

(1993). Verdi: A Biography. London & New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-313204-4.

Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane

(1998). "Il trovatore". In Stanley Sadie (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Vol. 4. London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 0-333-73432-7.

Parker, Roger

Pitou, Spire (1990). The Paris Opéra: An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers. Growth and Grandeur, 1815–1914. New York: Greenwood Press.  978-0-313-26218-0.

ISBN

Tambling, Jeremy (1987). . Manchester University Press. ISBN 0-7190-2238-X – via Internet Archive.

Opera, Ideology and Film

; Stefan, Paul (1973). Verdi: The Man and His Letters. New York: Vienna House. ISBN 0-8443-0088-8.

Werfel, Franz

Notes


Cited sources


Other sources

: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project

Il trovatore

giuseppeverdi.it

Synopsis, libretto