Il Trovatore’: Sublime Love Vs

REVIEWS Verdi’s ‘Il Trovatore’: Sublime Love vs. Revenge

iuseppe Verdi’s Il Trova- Manrico refuses to flee, Gtore was performed at the because he believes Leonora Kennedy Center by the Wash- has betrayed him by “selling” ington National Opera on her love for his freedom. As Nov. 11, 2004, more than 151 she dies from the self-inflicted years after its first performance poison, Manrico realizes the in Rome on Jan. 19, 1853. Il extent of her love for him. The Trovatore is part of a trilogy of Count arrives, realizes that operas composed by Verdi in Leonora has deceived him, his “middle” period, which and orders Manrico’s behead- includes Rigoletto (1851) and ing. Azucena, forced to watch, La Traviata (1853). Like Rigo- reveals the truth to him: “You r e letto, Il Trovatore demonstrates p have killed your brother.” o o the tragic consequences of a C n i r

a Role of Leonora

mentality based on revenge, K / a r and like La Traviata it empha- e When the original librettist p O l

sizes the alternative sublime a Salvatore Cammarano died n o i t

quality of selfless love, as a before completing the libretto, N n

developed by the German o he was replaced by Leone t g n dramatist Friedrich Schiller. i Emanuele Bardare, among h s a

The opera is based on an W whose tasks was an expansion 1836 drama about the Spanish Driven by the desire for revenge: Roberto Servile as Count di of the role of Leonora. Under civil war of 1412, by the Span- Luna, Elena Manistina as Azucena. Verdi’s supervision, her ish playwright Antonio Garcia cantabile “Tacea la notte” and Gutierrez. It is clear that Verdi is polemi- and the gypsy, Azucena, which ultimately the cavatina, “Di tale amor,” originally cizing in Il Trovatore against the bestial overwhelms all of leading characters. cut, were restored, and additional lines mentality of the Spanish Inquisition, even Many years earlier, Azucena’s mother were written for her in the Miserere. though the action of the opera is dated was burned at the stake for allegedly Verdi’s Leonora is reminiscent of prior to the establishment of the Spanish bewitching the Count’s younger brother Beethoven’s Leonore in the opera Fidelio Inquisition in the later Fifteenth century. Garzia. Charged by her mother to avenge (1805). While Beethoven’s Leonore suc- The death without an heir of King her death, Azucena abducted Garzia, but, ceeds in freeing her husband, Florestan, Martin I of Aragon on May 31, 1409 creat- in confusion, she murdered her own son from the evil Pizarro, Verdi’s Leonora is ed the conditions for civil war. Among the by mistake. Thus Manrico, whom Azuce- not successful, but she shares the same claimants to the throne were the King’s na has raised as her son, is in fact Garzia, quality of sublime love as Beethoven’s nephew Fernando de Antequera, King of Count di Luna’s brother, whose death he, character. In Act III, Scene 2, Manrico Castile, and Jaime de Aragon, Count of in turn, is pledged to avenge. says to her “Nothing but love, sublime Urgel, son of Martin’s first cousin and also The unknowing brothers Manrico love [“Amor, sublime amore”], must husband of his half-sister. Fernando was and di Luna become rivals for the love speak to your heart.” chosen King by the Aragonese parlia- of Leonora, the Queen’s lady-in-wait- Leonora’s aria, “D’amor sull’ali ment, and the Count of Urgel launched ing. But Leonora loves Manrico alone. rosee,” in Act IV, is also reminiscent of an unsuccessful rebellion to press his At the end of the play, Azucena is “Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin?” sung claims to the thrown. In the opera, the captured and identified as the gypsy by Beethoven’s Leonore in Act I, Scene 5, leader of the royal forces is Count di Luna, who had abducted Garzia. She in turn in which she sings; “Come, Hope . . . O and Manrico, a gypsy troubadour from reveals that she is the mother of the come . . . I follow the inner drive, I falter the mountains of Biscay, is among the rebel leader, Manrico. not, the duty of true married love commanders of Urgel’s rebellion. Manrico learns that di Luna is about strengthens me.” In Il Trovatore, Leonora to burn Azucena alive, rushes to her sings: “On the rosy wings of love fly, my Desire for Revenge defense, and is captured. His betrothed anguished sigh, and comfort the wary In this historical context, the plot of the Leonora decides to free him, by offering mind of the unhappy prisoner. Like a opera is defined by a desire for revenge on herself to di Luna, and then committing breath of hope fly to his cell, awaken him the part of two characters, Count di Luna suicide once Manrico has escaped. But to the memories, to the dreams of love.”

94 In the Washington National Opera per- “Ah, si, ben mio”: “Ah, yes, my love, in through the sacrifice of the latter. She formance, Leonora, sung by the Bulgari- being yours, in knowing that you are too could have told Count di Luna that an soprano Krassimira Stoyanova, really mine, my soul will now be braver, my Manrico was his brother, and thus elimi- came alive with this aria. arm stronger. But if on my page of fate it nated the Count’s prime reason for seek- As Friedrich Schiller writes, the feel- be written that I must die on the enemy’s ing revenge. ing of the sublime is a combination of sword, with my last breath my thoughts The Count himself, played by the woefulness and joyfulness, which results will be of you; for me, death will only Italian baritone Roberto Servile, is a true from the decision to embrace a moral mean that I await you in heaven.” ego-driven Beast-man, consumed by principle even in the face of great mis- “jealous love,” “injured pride,” and fortune, including death. The capacity The Beast-Man “seething rage.” In Act II, Scene 2, when to make such a decision establishes that Were it not for this quality of sublime the Count plots to abduct Leonora man has within him a moral capacity love as portrayed through the develop- before she enters a convent, he sings: independent of all sensuous emotions, ment of the role of Leonora, the action “Not even a rival God would oppose my and that this moral capacity defines his of the opera would merely culminate in love. Not even a God, my lady, can take true nature as a human being. death. The civil war is not waged by you from me now!” When, in Act IV, In this opera, where the dynamic of Urgel and the forces led by Manrico on Leonora asks him to show mercy for revenge leading ineluctably to death the basis of an explicitly republican con- Manrico, he sings: “My only God is otherwise dominates the action, the sub- ception. Neither Manrico nor Leonora vengeance.” And when he contemplates lime love of Leonora for Manrico, and dies fighting for political freedom. The the execution of Manrico, like the Grand his for her, proves that man’s free will is main dynamic of the opera is triggered Inquisitor he sings: “Ah, if only I might not destroyed even in the face of death. by the superstitious belief that the old find some crueler death for the rogue! In Both Leonora and Manrico say at vari- gypsy mother of Azucena bewitched a thousand fearful agonies, make hun- ous moments that they are willing to die Garzia. Even though Azucena has told dredfold his death.” for their love. In Act I, in “Di tale amor him that he is the Count’s brother, Man- But at the end of the opera, it is the che dirsi,” Leonora sings: “Either I shall rico does not use this knowledge to Count himself who suffers the “cru- live for him, or for him I shall die!” And thwart what is otherwise inevitable. elest death” of all. As Schiller writes in in Act IV, she sings: “Rather than live as Azucena, played beautifully by the his Philosophical Letters: “Love is the another’s, I chose to die as your love!” Russian mezzo-soprano Elena Manistina, co-governing citizen of a blossoming Manrico (played by the American driven by her mother’s desire for free state, egoism a despot in a ravaged tenor, Carl Tanner), after referencing revenge and love for her adopted son, creation.” “sublime love,” sings in Act III, Scene 2, Manrico, achieves the former only —William F. Wertz, Jr. ‘Rigoletto’: Verdi’s Education of the Emotions

n March 11, 1851, the composer OGiuseppe Verdi presented his new opera Rigoletto to an astonished audience in Venice, Italy. This musical mas- terpiece, which the composer himself described as “revolutionary,” continues to be one of the most often performed operas in the world, and rightly so. u a e

In Rigoletto, Verdi created a new con- b r a B

ception of operatic construction, in which r e h p

his masterful use of poetic and musical o t s i r irony succeeded in achieving what h C y

Friedrich Schiller called for in his essay b s o t

on “Theater as a Moral Institution”—the o h P / transformation of the audience, who r e t a e

leave the theater in an elevated state of h T a mind, reflecting on the off-stage implica- r e p tions of the action presented on-stage. O n a g In October 2004, Detroit’s Michigan i h c i

Opera Theater (MOT) attempted a cred- M ible performance of this Verdi master- Disguised as a student, the Duke (Scott Piper) approaches Gilda (Rosana Lamosa).

95 piece, with two different casts, drawn After months of battles with the Hapsburg approached by the Duke. Gilda falls in from many nations, both directed by censors, who refused to permit the stage love, believing the disguised Duke to be Italian stage director Mario Corradi. The depiction of a degenerate oligarch, and a poor student. setting and costumes accurately por- also tried to emasculate the opera by elimi- When the Duke’s courtiers discover trayed the Sixteenth-century Court of nating most of its dramatic ironies, Verdi, a young woman living at Rigoletto’s Mantua, and the voices, including those who was already famous as Italy’s nation- house, they assume her to be the jester’s of the younger singers, succeeded in ade- al composer, threatened to withdraw the mistress. In an act of revenge to repay quately conveying the emotional con- work entirely. The censors negotiated, Rigoletto’s many insults, they trick him flicts in the various characters. In fact, but it was Verdi who won the day. The into assisting them in kidnapping Gilda some of the singers excelled in making names and location were changed, but the for the Duke. She is seduced, and Rigo- transparent the dramatic shifts in charac- original idea, with all its passion, was to letto plans revenge. ter, as when the Duke appears to be gen- be performed as he wrote it. Gilda continues to believe in the uinely moved by Gilda, or when Rigolet- The opera premiered only two years Duke’s love, but Rigoletto is determined to, in first singing of his treasured after the orchestrated 1848-49 revolu- to prove otherwise. He arranges for her daughter, expresses true fatherly love. tions in Europe, in which Lord Palmer- to leave the city disguised as a boy, but Despite such positive features, how- ston’s agent Giuseppe Mazzini deployed not before he has exposed the Duke for ever, the performance’s flaws ultimately his gangs to invade, sack, and then rule what he truly is. Thus, Rigoletto brings rendered it a disappointment. The prob- sections of Rome and the Papal States, Gilda to the tavern of the assassin Spara- lem lies, overall, in the director’s inabili- terrorizing the population in the name of fucile (Buruk Bigili, bass), whom he has ty to distinguish between the original, “liberty.”1 Most Italian intellectuals and hired to avenge Gilda’s seduction by Classical intent of the composer Verdi, patriots, who had been hopeful about killing the Duke. Inside, they witness and the modernist, Romantic gimmicks Mazzini, broke with him when they saw Sparafucile’s sister Maddalena (Tracie inserted into the work under the delu- his agenda and method of Jacobin fas- Luck, mezzo-soprano) offering the Duke sion that they will make the production cism. But the problem remained: How her favors, as he sings to her of love. more accessible to an audience today. would Italy, then a conglomerate of feu- Later, under pressure from Maddale- dal kingdoms and Papal States, be trans- na, Sparafucile agrees to spare the Duke, Republican vs. Oligarchy formed into a unified, nation-state but only if he can substitute another Verdi was inspired by Victor Hugo’s 1832 republic? dead body to deliver to Rigoletto. When play Le Roi S’amuse (The King Amuses Verdi took leadership, addressing the disguised Gilda overhears this, she Himself), which portrayed a real king, that question directly with the produc- decides to sacrifice herself for love. She Francis I of France (1494-1547) as a liber- tion of Rigoletto, by portraying the para- is stabbed, stuffed into a sack, and deliv- tine, whose amusement was raping every doxes implicit in the education of the ered to her unsuspecting father. wife and daughter he could get his hands emotions to create a population capable In the end, as Rigoletto gloats over his on, including those of his political oppo- of self-government. Such education—as revenge, he discovers to his horror that it nents. As in the play, the opera centers opposed to Romantic moralizing— is his wounded daughter in the sack. around a “father’s curse” pronounced occurs in what Lyndon LaRouche iden- Gilda sings of her love for the Duke, and against the libertine and his accomplice, a tifies as the “complex domain,” and not of meeting her mother in heaven. She vicious court jester (Rigoletto), by the in the realm of the senses. dies, and the curse is fulfilled. father of one of their young victims. Verdi’s desire to set this play to music Story of the Opera Breakthrough in Musical Composition dates back to his first reading of it in 1844, Rigoletto (sung by Chen-Ye Yuan, bari- Verdi employed new musical discoveries and when the opportunity arose in the tone) is the serpent-tongued, hunch- in this opera, which contribute to the year 1850, he seized it. He wrote to his backed jester in the court of the lecher- power of the drama. He discarded the librettist, Franceso Maria Piave, “Oh, Le ous young Duke of Mantua (Scott Piper, “set piece” form of structured recitative, Roi S’amuse is the greatest plot, and per- tenor), who assists the Duke to pursue aria, duet, trio, and opera finale, in favor haps the greatest drama of modern times. his sexual exploits, but is seized by terror of real dramatic action, which moved [The jester] Tribolet is a creation worthy when Count Monterone (Donald Hart- primarily through what Verdi called “an of Shakespeare!! . . . It is a subject that mann, bass-baritone), the father of one endless series of duets.” These duets and cannot fail! . . . Now, reviewing several of the Duke’s victims, pronounces a ensembles heighten the conflicts among subjects again, when—like a bolt of light- curse on the pair for their crimes. the characters, each of whom is increas- ening, like an inspiration—I thought of Rigoletto fears the curse because he ingly differentiated by distinct orchestral Le Roi S’amuse, I said the same thing, Yes, is, in secret, himself a loving father, who colors and musical ideas. The density of by God, that’s the right one!” is desperately attempting to protect his poetic and musical paradoxes intensifies Verdi knew that the play had been daughter Gilda (Rosana Lamosa, sopra- as the various combinations of bel canto banned after its premiere, so he instructed no) from the Duke’s licentiousness. He voices sing against one another their con- Piave: “Turn Venice upside down to permits Gilda to leave the house only to trasting passions and plans. make the censors permit this subject.” go to church, but she is seen and The remarkable duet between Rigo-

96 letto and Sparafucile, where the assassin is introduced, is just one example of Verdi’s creative interweaving of voice and orchestra. Most of the melody line is sung by the orchestra, as the duet, which is really a dialogue between two low men’s voices, plants the seeds for the action to come, u a e while directly leading into Rigoletto’s b r a B

reflection on his own awful fate. r e h p

Verdi used an all-male chorus, which o t s i r in this production was quite good, led by h C y its three soloists, Marullo (Michael b s o t

Mayes, baritone), Matteo Borsa (Tor- o h P / rance Blaisdell, tenor), and Count Cepra- r e t a e

no (James Patterson, bass). There were h T a particularly effective moments—for r e p example, when they discover that Gilda O n a g is not Rigoletto’s mistress, but his daugh- i h c i ter, in an ensemble with the horrified M jester. The male chorus also has a “non- The jester Rigoletto (Chen-Ye Yuan, right) plots with the assassin Sparafucile (Buruk Bigili). vocal” part in this opera, which Verdi developed as a feature of his expanded Although including pantomime like emotions in completely different musi- use of differentiated orchestration: the this during the overture is an increasing- cal lines, which are nonetheless heard as chorus, with orchestra, together portray ly popular practice among some opera a unity. It is one of the most phenome- the terrible storm in the last act. companies, it is an unwarranted addi- nal vocal quartets ever composed. Verdi’s musical continuity from tion that reflects more than just “poetic Unfortunately, the power of that overture to concluding note, his varied license” on the part of the director. The music was severely blunted, as was the orchestral coloration, and his less-formal underlying axiomatic assumption guid- impact of the beautiful mezzo voice in scene structure, weaving seamlessly ing such an addition (assuming that no the quartet, by the MOT’s insane decision through the thread of the tragic action, malicious perversion is intended) is, that to have Maddalena act out performing evoke profound emotions in the listener, the audience must be constantly bom- oral sex on the Duke at the start of the as the mind digests the paradoxes posed barded with visual and other effects, to piece! The “pathos” which Verdi insisted of revenge, honor, hypocrisy, love, the be able to understand the action of the not be written out by the censors, was “curse,” and, more generally implied, performance. virtually written out here, by writing in the issues of leadership in social relations One could raise many details of this such an absurd, “sensual” effect. and society in general. performance for criticism, including the To sum up: What might have been balance between the orchestra and the an enjoyable performance was under- Music Is Heard in the Mind singers, or the preference to change mined by the director’s unnecessary Verdi understood that the communica- Rigoletto from a deformed hunchback changes and additions to Verdi’s care- tion of ideas occurs only in the domain with two conflicting sides to his soul, fully conceived and composed master- of cognition. If this fundamental idea is into a jester whose deformity is not real, piece. Verdi created Rigoletto from the not understood, then sensual effects will but only an affectation of his adopted standpoint of uplifting and transform- be substituted in place of true poetic persona. But all these problems stem ing his audience, with the aim of creat- ironies, and the unfortunate result will from a Romantic reading of what Verdi ing an Italian citizenry and nation. be to change the intent of the composi- intended, rather than the Classical idea, Without that concept clearly in mind for tion itself. which defines the purpose of art not as today’s performances, the music, even In the MOT production, this flaw was entertainment, but as that which elevates when well sung, is reduced to sensual evident right from the outset. As the the mind to the level of the sublime. experiences, not ideas—and that would overture began, the curtain rose to reveal In this performance, the most blatant have made maestro Verdi very angry. the acting-out of scenes on both sides of denial of this power of the mind —Susan W. Bowen the stage, designed to show the audience appeared in the final act quartet, where what had happened before the opera’s Rigoletto and Gilda peer inside the tav- 1. See “Lord Palmerston’s Multicultural actual opening! There was no singing, of ern, as Gilda’s beloved Duke seduces the Human Zoo,” Proceedings of the Schiller course, during this instrumental introduc- assassin’s sister Maddalena. Four differ- Institute/I.C.L.C. Conference, Feb. 19-20, 1994, Executive Intelligence Review, April tion, but obviously, if Verdi had thought ent voice species, soprano, mezzo-sopra- 15, 1994 (Vol. 21, No. 16). The Proceed- such scenes were necessary, then he surely no (Verdi had a contralto), tenor, and ings are posted on the Schiller Institute would have called for them in the score. baritone express their very different website at www.schillerinstitute.org.