
Caruso
Il Trovatore
Il Trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, Saturday 2nd of July, 2016, reviewed by Leslie Jones
Il Trovatore, as Ilana Walder-Biesanz has observed, is a leading candidate for the most implausible plot of all time. And although Verdi asked his librettist Salvadore Cammarano to avoid the usual “cavatinas, duets, trios, choruses, finales etc”, all of these elements duly featured in the finished product.
Cammarano wrote the libretto for Donizetti’s drama tragique, Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), and there are distinct echoes of this work throughout Il Trovatore. However, Verdi vetoed Cammarano’s proposal that the gypsy Azucena go mad in the final act.