I was busy last week and couldn't go on with our travel through one of Verdi's masterpieces: Il Trovatore. Sorry for that, we'll do that now and we'll discover the second act of the opera, which is called La gitana, "the gipsy woman". But before the curtain opens, you have to know something...
In fact, many things have happened since the end of act 1. The Count of Luna lost his duel with Manrico, but Manrico did not kill him, we'll see later why. Some time later, Manrico was caught in an ambush by the Count of Luna and fell wounded to the ground. Everyone thought he was dead (and the news of his death spread throughout Spain)...
...and Azucena and Leonora both had the bad news and reacted in a very different way:
Ok, don't ask me why exactly Leonora makes this decision; it doesn't make much sense, does it? "Oh, the man I saw three times and that I could not even recognize when I met him has just died... I am so sad right now and I don't want to be engaged with any other man. Let me think... yes! I will become a nun!" That's Opera logic, you will learn to understand it; it is simple, there are only two points you should always remember:
1) In Opera there are no quick ones: love lasts always forever. Even if two people have met only once, even if they don't even know their names, even if one of them does something terrible, you can bet it: they will remain in love for the rest of the opera
2) In Opera, blood is needed, so, if you're an opera character and you have a little row with someone else, you should take your sword and make a duel with him. The result of the duel will depend on the role you have in the opera: if you're the main character, you will die (and your girlfriend, who still loves you even though you accused her of being a liar and tried to kill her, will cry for you - see point 1 for more informations), if you're the bad guy, you'll win.
So, I imagine that the decision about the Leonora-wants-to-be-a-nun thing in Il Trovatore came out like this:
Ok, ok, I know, I have to be serious: well, the nun thing was already in the source for Il Trovatore, which is Antonio García Gutiérrez's El Trovador. So, Verdi simply put in music what was already in Gutiérrez opera. But I love to imagine that things went as I shown you in the image above.
But let's mind Leonora for a moment and let's focus on Azucena: she goes and looks for Manrico and she manages to find him but...
...suprise! He's not dead, he's still alive! So, she takes him in the gipsy village in the Basque Country where she lives and cures him. And it's only after all that that the curtain opens and that act II begins...
However, Azucena's tale is not important only because she shows us the story of her mother's death from a point of view which is different from Ferrando's one: it is important also because she tells us something that Ferrando didn't say and could not know. Which is, she never killed the Count of Luna's son, she mistook and killed her own son instead.
That's not a big surprise for you (you've already learnt that here) but it is for Manrico, who suddenly realizes that, if Azucena killed her only son, he cannot be Azucena's son. And so, he asks, who am I?
I know: you're expecting Azucena to tell him the truth. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you but she does not do that and she won't until the very end of the story. The reason? You can imagine it: Azucena want Manrico to kill the Count of Luna as a revenge for the execution of her mother. And you'll agree with me that Manrico would not have a strong desire to kill the Count if he knew that he actually is his brother. So, Azucena knows she must never tell Manrico the truth and this omission, as we will see, will lead Manrico to death.
Many critics have been interested in this aspect of Azucena's figure: she loves Manrico as if she really were his mother (if she didn't, she would not have gone on the battlefield looking for him and she would not have cured him), but she also wants revenge and so plans to use this son/not son - as the Italian critic Fabrizio della Seta calls him - to get her revenge. At last, she'll have her revenge, but she'll have through Manrico's death.
Fabrizio della Seta wrote:
In Il Trovatore Azucena has an inner conflict between the duty of taking a revenge for the death of her mother and the love for the son-not son who has to be the victim of that revenge. [...] This situation is very similar to the one we can see in La Juive, but here the decision which resolves the conflict is not an act of fanatism but [...] an omission: Azucena's desire of revenge wins over her love for Manrico by making her "forget" to tell everyone in time Manrico's real identity.
Just in case you're wondering: La Juive is an opera by Halévy in which the Jew Eleazar saves the little daughter of Count Brogni (who later will become Cardinal), calls her Rachel and grows her as if she were his own daughter. Can you find any similarities with Il Trovatore? Well, there's something more.
In fact, as in Il Trovatore, Rachel thinks Eleazar is her real father and, as in Il Trovatore, Eleazar never tells her her real identity. In the end of the opera, Eleazar and Rachel are both condemned to death and Eleazar could save her by telling everyone her real identity but he decides not to and lets her die when he hears some people screaming for Jews' blood (this is the "act of fanatism" Della Seta refers to). You can find more information on the plot of La Juive here.
So, Azucena does not tell Manrico who his real father is and she says to him: "Don't worry, you're my son."
But now it is Manrico who has something to say. He has to tell Azucena why he did not kill the Count of Luna after the duel. She wants to know it: in fact, if Manrico had killed the Count she would have had her revenge, so why didn't he do it?
Well, Manrico's answer is quite strange. Let's listen to the aria in which he talks about the duel, then I'll translate to you what he said.
The explanation Manrico gives is not so clear: he says that before he could kill the Count two things happened:
1) He suddenly felt cold
2) A voice from the sky said: "Don't kill him"
Which, you'll admit, is a little bit strange and can be explained only in this way: Manrico somehow feels that there's something deeper than their rivalry which binds him to the Count of Luna. He has somehow understood the relationship he has with the Count, but Azucena does not seem to care. She makes him promise that if he has again the opportunity he will kill the Count. Manrico promises and everything would end like this if a sudden news would not come: Leonora, believing that Manrico is dead, is going to become a nun.
So Manrico leaves to stop this from happening and the curtain goes down: it is the end of the first part of act II.
See you soon for the second part and for the end of this wonderful opera!
Part 2: The gipsy - Azucena's tale
We have already said that in Il Trovatore acts are called "Parts" and each part has its own name. So, welcome to Part II, which, as you know, is called La gitana.
When the curtain opens, we are in the small gipsy village in the Basque Country where Azucena took Manrico to cure him. It is early morning and the gipsies are singing while working and their happy song, Vedi le fosche notturne spoglie, is one of the most famous pieces in Il Trovatore. You probably already know it: it is the Anvil chorus, which is called like that because of the hammer-on-anvil sound Verdi put to accompany the gipsies' song.
So, try to imagine that: a peaceful village full of happy gipsies singing and striking on anvils with their hammers. Music is everywhere, all is peaceful and filled with joy. Who or what could ruin this peaceful scene?
Azucena.
Well, thing is that she decides this is the right moment to tell everyone about the death of her mother. Which, you'll agree with me, is not exactly a good subject to begin the day, given that Azucena's mother didn't die in her bed at the age of 113, but was burnt at stake. You'll learn to know Azucena, she's like that: she likes to ruin moments in which everyone is happy, you'll get used to that.
So, Azucena tells again the story Ferrando has already told us, but what is interesting is that Azucena tells the story from a perspective which is obviously different from Ferrando's one. In fact, Ferrando told us the story from the killers' point of view, Azucena now is telling it from the victim's point of view. This is what I call the narrative polyphony of Il Trovatore: we hear the same story, again and again, but it never is exactly the same story, because the character who's telling it is someone different, with a different view on that story, so he or she tells it in a different way.
As we'll see later, Luciano Berio, who was probably the main Italian composer in the second half of XX century, thought that this polyphony of voices telling in different ways the same story was so important that, when he composed together with Italo Calvino (probably the main Italian writer in the second half of XX century) his reinterpretation of Il Trovatore, La Vera Storia ("The true story"), he created a two-act opera in which each of the two acts tells the same story, but the musical and theatrical language differ very much from one act to the other, as if the two acts were told by different narrators.
As we'll see later, Luciano Berio, who was probably the main Italian composer in the second half of XX century, thought that this polyphony of voices telling in different ways the same story was so important that, when he composed together with Italo Calvino (probably the main Italian writer in the second half of XX century) his reinterpretation of Il Trovatore, La Vera Storia ("The true story"), he created a two-act opera in which each of the two acts tells the same story, but the musical and theatrical language differ very much from one act to the other, as if the two acts were told by different narrators.
We're talking more about that later, now let's go on with the Part Two of Il Trovatore and let's listen to Azucena's story: here's Stride la vampa:
However, Azucena's tale is not important only because she shows us the story of her mother's death from a point of view which is different from Ferrando's one: it is important also because she tells us something that Ferrando didn't say and could not know. Which is, she never killed the Count of Luna's son, she mistook and killed her own son instead.
That's not a big surprise for you (you've already learnt that here) but it is for Manrico, who suddenly realizes that, if Azucena killed her only son, he cannot be Azucena's son. And so, he asks, who am I?
Many critics have been interested in this aspect of Azucena's figure: she loves Manrico as if she really were his mother (if she didn't, she would not have gone on the battlefield looking for him and she would not have cured him), but she also wants revenge and so plans to use this son/not son - as the Italian critic Fabrizio della Seta calls him - to get her revenge. At last, she'll have her revenge, but she'll have through Manrico's death.
Fabrizio della Seta wrote:
In Il Trovatore Azucena has an inner conflict between the duty of taking a revenge for the death of her mother and the love for the son-not son who has to be the victim of that revenge. [...] This situation is very similar to the one we can see in La Juive, but here the decision which resolves the conflict is not an act of fanatism but [...] an omission: Azucena's desire of revenge wins over her love for Manrico by making her "forget" to tell everyone in time Manrico's real identity.
(taken from F. Della Seta, Italia e Francia nell'Ottocento, EDT, 1993)
Just in case you're wondering: La Juive is an opera by Halévy in which the Jew Eleazar saves the little daughter of Count Brogni (who later will become Cardinal), calls her Rachel and grows her as if she were his own daughter. Can you find any similarities with Il Trovatore? Well, there's something more.
In fact, as in Il Trovatore, Rachel thinks Eleazar is her real father and, as in Il Trovatore, Eleazar never tells her her real identity. In the end of the opera, Eleazar and Rachel are both condemned to death and Eleazar could save her by telling everyone her real identity but he decides not to and lets her die when he hears some people screaming for Jews' blood (this is the "act of fanatism" Della Seta refers to). You can find more information on the plot of La Juive here.
So, Azucena does not tell Manrico who his real father is and she says to him: "Don't worry, you're my son."
Part 2: The gipsy - Manrico's tale
But now it is Manrico who has something to say. He has to tell Azucena why he did not kill the Count of Luna after the duel. She wants to know it: in fact, if Manrico had killed the Count she would have had her revenge, so why didn't he do it?
Well, Manrico's answer is quite strange. Let's listen to the aria in which he talks about the duel, then I'll translate to you what he said.
The explanation Manrico gives is not so clear: he says that before he could kill the Count two things happened:
1) He suddenly felt cold
2) A voice from the sky said: "Don't kill him"
Which, you'll admit, is a little bit strange and can be explained only in this way: Manrico somehow feels that there's something deeper than their rivalry which binds him to the Count of Luna. He has somehow understood the relationship he has with the Count, but Azucena does not seem to care. She makes him promise that if he has again the opportunity he will kill the Count. Manrico promises and everything would end like this if a sudden news would not come: Leonora, believing that Manrico is dead, is going to become a nun.
So Manrico leaves to stop this from happening and the curtain goes down: it is the end of the first part of act II.
See you soon for the second part and for the end of this wonderful opera!
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