A night at the opera: discovering "Il Trovatore" by Giuseppe Verdi - Episode 4: How the story ends

The story so far: Manrico is in love with Leonora, but the Count of Luna, who is in an enemy to Manrico in the civil war, loves her too. Believing that Manrico is dead, Leonora has decided to become a nun and Manrico is going to rescue her. But he does not know that the Count of Luna has had the same idea and now is in Castellor, where the ceremony during which Leonora will become a nun will take place, and he wants to rescue her too!

As you can see, new fights are going to take place and again the swords will cross. The opera will end as it began, with love, blood and mystery. But let's start from the beginning...

The Count of Luna is now in Castellor, looking for Leonora. He believes Manrico is dead and thinks that now noone could stop him from being engaged with Leonora...

...and he decides to stop and tell us in a wonderful aria that he loves Leonora very much...

...and that noone, "not even a God", can steal Leonora from him:

This seems to me a little bit what you can see in every Disney movie, when the bad guy is sure that he will win and so he says to everyone: "You know, I'm the smartest and most beautiful man on earth, that's why I've won and my rival has lost", but then the hero arrives and he loses everything. Well, this is exactly what happens in this scene, because, after this I-won-and-Manrico-lost aria by the Count of Luna, Manrico arrives and rescues Leonora while she's going to the church where, if he hadn't come, she would have become a nun.

The only thing the Count of Luna can do is what he always do: get angry and shout against Manrico: "Hey, everyone said you were dead, so why are you here?" 

Leonora, for her part, didn't  like very much the idea of being rescued by the Count of Luna, so she's very happy when Manrico arrives. Thus the second part ends and, when the curtain closes, on scene there is a very angry Count, a very happy Manrico who's going away with Leonora and a very funny fight bethween the supporters of the two men, as we can see in the following video:

Part 3: Il figlio della zingara

But the Count won't have to wait long to have his revenge: in fact, when he returns to his encampment (and he is very angry, as you can imagine), he finds out that his soldiers have arrested a gipsy woman who was wandering near to the camp and who is thought to be a spy. Can you guess who she is? Of course, she's Azucena, and she's immediately recognized by Ferrando, who, as you should remember, said in the first Part that he could recognize the daughter of the woman who was burnt at stake even though many years had passed.

When Azucena understands she has been recognized, she has a wonderful idea: she tells everyone she's Manrico's mother. So, she makes the Count very happy: he condemns her to be burnt at stake, so he can achieve two goals:

1) He can take his revenge on the woman who, he thinks, killed his brother

2) He can take his revenge on Manrico who stole Leonora from him

The news arrives to Manrico, who has just promised eternal love to Leonora, and he has to go and rescue his mother...

...but, before doing that, he sings one of the most famous opera arias of all time: the very well known cabaletta Di quella pira:

Which, you'll agree with me, is a wonderful tune to sing under the shower...

To arms! To arms!

...and which has always been controversial because of its High Cs from the chest. The reason of the controversy is easy to understand if you remember what we said about the Solita forma (if you don't, you can go and see here): in the Solita Forma, the Cabaletta was repeated twice and during the second repetition the singer could change the music by inserting High Cs or grace notes in order to show his vocal ability. And so should singers do in Di quella pira, being Di quella pira a Cabaletta.

But...

But singers made a strange thing, in 1800s: they didn't sing the aria twice, they sang it only once, but they put in it many High Cs and grace notes. And this was the version of this aria which became famous worldwide (for instance, this one-repetition-with-High-Cs version is the version you've heard in the video above, where it is sung by the famous italian singer Mario Del Monaco) and this is a problem, because performing this aria with only one repetition and with High Cs does not mean only doing something which is not what Verdi wanted, but it also implies that the singers and the orchestra don't play all the music there is between the first and the second repetition (because actually there is music between the first and the second repetition, there is a short piece sung by Leonora, as you will hear).

Today, after many critics and conductors, among whom the famous Italian conductor Riccardo Muti, deeply criticized this way of performing Di quella pira, the original version of the aria is performed: the aria is repeated twice and there still are the High Cs from the chest, which are the part of Di quella pira audiences of all the world want to hear in order to judge singer's ability, but singers perform it in the second repetition of the cabaletta.

The "modern" version of Di quella pira sounds like this:

Please appreciate the Eighties Heavy Metal singer dress which Bonisolli wears there. It is quite horrible, isn't it? It makes him look like the singer of Europe, Motley Crue or of any Eighties hair metal group you can think of.

Well, this was the end of Part 3 of Il Trovatore, which was called Il figlio della zingara, the son of the gipsy woman. We're ready now to know how the story ends in Part 4, which is called Il supplizio, "The execution". Any ideas on how the story will end?

Part 4: il supplizio

Manrico fails to rescue his mother and is imprisoned and condemned to death. Leonora tries to save him by promising to marry the Count of Luna...

...but then she kills herself and the Count of Luna gets angry (for the tenth time in the opera) and execute Manrico.

Azucena dies too but, before doing that, she reveals to the Count of Luna that Manrico, who has just died, was his brother and, while she's lead to the place where she will be executed, she cries: "You had your revenge, mother!" That's a good way of taking one's revenge: you make your own son be killed and after he's dead you reveal that he was the brother of the man who killed him. Really well done, Azucena, you're really a genius. Maybe if you had said that a little bit earlier, Manrico could have been saved. But, you know, that's what we said when we talked about Azucena's omission: she has an inner conflict between her love for Manrico and her desire of revenge and at last her desire of revenge wins by making her "forget" to tell everyone in time the truth about Manrico's identity.

I know, the last act of Il Trovatore is a little bit sad: everyone dies, noone is happy (apart from Azucena), everything is destroyed in a second. Well, get used to this, because this is the standard end of Italian non-comic operas: death, sadness, death, sadness and so on. Well, in Il Trovatore we probably have more death and more sadness than in standard operas and that's why many critics said Il Trovatore is the Verdian opera where we can find less hope and more despair. A nihilist opera, if we can say that, and this vision on this opera can be supported by Verdi's own words.

In fact, after the opera was first represented, in 1853, many people said it was too sad and Verdi, in a letter he wrote on the 20th of January (ten days after the first representation of Il Trovatore) to his friend Clara Maffei, tried to explain why he wrote such a sad opera:

Dicono che quest’Opera sia troppo triste e che vi sieno troppe morti ma infine nella vita tutto è morte! Cosa esiste?

They say that this Opera is too sad and that there are too many deaths in it but, at last, in life everything is death! What exists?

(taken from G.Verdi's Lettere, Einaudi, 2012)

So, there is not casual that there are so many deaths in Il Trovatore: they reflect the view of a composer who thought that, at last, everything in life had to come to an end, had to die. Il Trovatore is, at last, an opera about three characters (the Count of Luna, Leonora, Manrico) who deceive themselves, who try to think that the idea that nothing but death exists is not true, who try to believe in love, in politics, but at last are all defeated. Il Trovatore is the story of the end of an illusion and that's why it is a sad story.

One interesting feature in the end of Il Trovatore is the theme of fate: in fact, both Manrico and the Count of Luna are victims of the events which happened when they were very young. Manrico does not die in a duel for Leonora's love, he dies while trying to save his mother that the Count of Luna has condemned to death because of that ancient story and who does not save him by telling everyone the truth because she wants revenge for what happened in that far past. So, the past, as a curse, comes and decides the destiny of the characters. It is something similar to the curse in Rigoletto, if you think about that.

I know, you're all sad right now. Well, luckily, Il Trovatore's Part 4 features one of the most beautiful musical pieces of the opera. And so, we can listen to the music and forget about the sad end of the opera. This is the Miserere:

This Miserere, which you've probably already heard in Marx Brothers' movie A night at the opera and if you haven't you can do this right now by watching the video below (I know, it is in Spanish, I couldn't find on YouTube this scene in English, sorry about that)...

...is very interesting not only because it is wonderful, but also because it tells us something about the way Verdi uses the Solita Forma. In fact, the Miserere is only the Tempo di Mezzo of an Aria whose Cantabile is D'amor sull'ali rosee, which you can hear it in the first half of the first video below, then in the second half you have the Miserere:



This says much about how Verdi used Solita forma: he kept its structure, but he put music where there wasn't and he put theatrical action where it lacked. Recitatives in Donizetti and Bellini operas were musically boring: Verdi filled recitatives with music and often used them to create monologues. We will see it in Rigoletto: during recitatives, the main character thinks, talks and the music follows his thoughts and changes as his thoughts change.

In Tempo di mezzo lacked theatrical action: what happened during it was often very, very simple (a letter arrived, the main character knew that someone wanted to kill him and so on). Verdi used it to make characters interact in ways which were different from traditional duets, quartets and so on (where characters had to sing together at the same time) and from traditional Tempo d'attacco (where characters had to talk between themselves). See for instance the Miserere we've just heard: we have Manrico and Leonora together on stage and they're both singing but

1) They're not singing the same thing at the same moment as in duets
2) They're not talking between themselves as in Tempo d'attacco

Then we have a choir and it sings together with the two characters (it is a choir of people asking God to forgive the souls of the condemned to death), which would have been impossible in a traditional duet or in a Tempo d'attacco.

The effect, both from a musical and a theatrical point of view, is wonderful: the bell tolls and the choir sings its sad prayer, so Leonora expresses the fear which that choir gives to her. Manrico, as Leonora, has heard the choir and he, as Leonora, has a reaction to that: he says that he wants to die and he bids Leonora farewell. The voice of Manrico is heard by Leonora and she says she could faint.

As you can see, there is a very particular interaction among the characters on scene (Manrico, Leonora, the choir) which is very different from the one you can see in a duet and which has a very moving effect on the audience, in particular in the end of the scene, when Manrico says: "Leonora, farewell, don't forget me" and Leonora answers (but Manrico cannot hear her): "I won't".

And on this poetic image of the last farewell of the two lovers our final episode of this series of A night at the opera posts on Il Trovatore ends. But don't be sad: we will talk about other operas and we will talk again soon about Il Trovatore because we'll discover La Vera Storia, an opera which Berio and Calvino wrote trying to make a "modern version" of Il Trovatore.

Stay tuned!

A night at the opera: discovering "Il Trovatore" by Giuseppe Verdi - Episode 3: Gipsies and Nuns

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...

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.

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?

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.

(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!

Opera made simple: scopriamo "Il trovatore"... - Parte quarta: la gitana reloaded e il figlio della zingara

1. La gitana: welcome in Castellor!

Cambio scena ed eccoci di nuovo qui. Adesso siamo nella ridente località di Castellor, località che non esiste nella realtà ma va bene lo stesso e ci troviamo presso il convento in cui Leonora dovrebbe farsi suora.

Già, ma perché Leonora si vuole fare suora? Mi dispiace, ma nel Trovatore non ci sono conversioni sulla via di Damasco, i personaggi agiscono in base a due sentimenti, essenzialmente: la vendetta e l'amore. E infatti Leonora vuole farsi suora perché si è sparsa la voce che Manrico è morto e quindi lei non vuole sposare nessun altro.

Ovviamente, come al solito, Manrico e il Conte di Luna hanno avuto la stessa idea: "Ehi, perché non andiamo a rapirla prima che si faccia suora?". La cosa simpatica è che il Conte di Luna è convinto anche lui che Manrico sia morto, quindi si comporta come se niente o nessuno possa più togliergli Leonora. Quindi passa circa dieci minuti ad autocelebrarsi e a comunicare al mondo che lui ama tanto Leonora e che tra poco se la prenderà. Il che mi ricorda molto i cattivi dei film di supereroi americani che raccontano tutta la loro infanzia difficile e tormentata prima di fare quello che devono fare, con il solo risultato di perdere un sacco di tempo e di dare all'eroe di turno (non di rado nemmeno troppo sveglio) la possibilità di riorganizzarsi.

2. La gitana: un finale d'atto in cui tutti sono molto sorpresi...

La qual cosa succede anche in questo caso, dimostrando, se ce ne fosse ancora bisogno, che gli sceneggiatori di Hollywood hanno l'originalità di un documentario sulla riproduzione delle zebre il martedì pomeriggio su Rai3. Infatti, dopo che il Conte di Luna ha esaltato il suo grande amore per Leonora che può vincere ogni cosa ecc. ecc. ecc. (se volete ascoltare la versione uncut della sua autoesaltazione, potete farlo qui sopra) succedono due cose:

1. Quando il Conte prova a rapire Leonora, ella gli rifila un due di picche notevole. Il Conte non reagisce bene e si mette a inseguire Leonora in stile Fantozzi con la signorina Silvani, solo che...
2. ...improvvisamente, qual fantasma sorto di sotterra, come scrive Cammarano nel libretto, compare Manrico.

Reazione generale: "Ah, ma non era morto?"

"Dunque gli estinti/lasciano di morte il regno eterno!" "E deggio e posso crederlo?/Ti vedo a me d'accanto!"

L'azione si ferma dunque improvvisamente, perché tutti sentono un improvviso bisogno di declinare a modo loro la sorpresa per la improvvisa ricomparsa di Manrico. Ecco, il colpo di scena alla fine del secondo atto con conseguente scena in cui tutti sono molto sorpresi è una costante dell'opera italiana. Lo introdusse Rossini, che poneva al termine del secondo atto delle sue opere serie e del primo atto delle sue opere buffe il cosiddetto "concertato di stupore" (la struttura del finale d'atto rossiniano, di cui parleremo più diffusamente quando vedremo qualche opera del compositore di Pesaro, era concertato di stupore - cantabile - stretta): in generale, quello che succedeva era che succedeva qualcosa di sorprendente (nel "Barbiere di Siviglia", ad esempio, il Conte di Almaviva vestito da soldato riesce a scampare all'arresto mostrando un segno della sua nobiltà ai gendarmi), tutti erano sorpresi e cantavano per cinque minuti dicendo quanto erano sorpresi. Questo è, ad esempio, quello che succede nel Barbiere di Siviglia: il Conte di Almaviva vestito da soldato riesce a scampare all'arresto mostrando un segno della sua nobiltà ai gendarmi e tutti sono molto sorpresi, come possiamo vedere:

Ebbene, questo viene ripreso anche dagli operisti successivi, cioè Donizetti e Bellini, che però parleranno di concertato e basta: ad esempio, nel finale del secondo atto della Lucia di Lammermoor, l'improvvisa comparsa di Edgardo suscita la sorpresa di tutti (Edgardo è sorpreso perché Lucia si è sposata mentre gli aveva promesso eterno amore, Lucia è sorpresa perché le avevano detto che Edgardo aveva un'altra, gli altri sono sorpresi per la presenza stessa di Edgardo) e anche qui segue pezzo di cinque minuti in cui tutti comunicano al mondo la propria sorpresa (potete sentirlo qui sotto, con Kraus e la Sutherland).

In Verdi ormai le convenzioni dell'opera della prima metà dell'Ottocento stanno lentamente cadendo (Il trovatore è del 1853) e di finali "tradizionali" con colpo di scena e sorpresona ne iniziamo a trovare sempre meno. Ma Il trovatore, da questo punto di vista, è ancora in parte ancorato al passato, infatti abbiamo ancora qualcosa che somiglia al concertato dell'opera tradizionale in cui tutti sono molto sorpresi per il colpo di scena che c'è appena stato e cantano tutti insieme per esprimere la loro sorpresa:

Poi Manrico si porta via Leonora e il Conte resta lì con il suo due di picche a meditare sul senso della vita.

3. Il figlio della zingara: un atto breve in cui succedono due cose importanti...

Ci stiamo avvicinando alla fine e ci troviamo ora alla terza parte dell'opera, Il figlio della zingara, in cui succedono essenzialmente due cose:

1. In primo luogo, Azucena, che si trovava a girellare allegramente intorno all'accampamento del Conte di Luna viene arrestata e portata dal Conte come sospetta spia. Il problema è che insieme al Conte c'è anche Ferrando, il quale è dall'inizio dell'opera che dice di voler trovare Azucena per permettere che venga uccisa, dunque a questo punto non si tira indietro e dice al Conte: "Guarda che lei è la donna che ha ucciso tuo fratello!"
   
    Risultato: Azucena viene condannata al rogo...
2. ...e la notizia arriva a Manrico, che nel frattempo è arrivato a casina sua bella con Leonora e sta facendo grandi proclami sulla vita che faranno insieme ("Oh, amore, vivremo sempre insieme, ma anche se morirò in guerra sarò contento, perché mi sembrerà di precederti in cielo!"). . Solo che, non appena arriva la notizia dell'arresto di Azucena, Manrico pianta lì Leonora e corre in soccorso della madre. Per farlo, canta un'aria molto celebre, Di quella pira, ma prima di poterne parlare dobbiamo parlare un po' di "Solita forma". Che cos'è? Lo saprete nel prossimo post.

Auf wiedersehen!