Verdi: Il trovatore **
The Royal Opera, 4th December 2016
“Do you really want to see Trovatore on the stage with that story? Really?!” exclaimed Antonio Pappano to me recently. I can’t be sure the Music Director of the Royal Opera specifically had David Bösch’s July production in mind, but this swift revival reinforces his notion that the plot is “preposterous”. The Marx Brothers famously sent up Verdi’s middle period masterpiece in A Night at the Opera and if Bösch doesn’t exactly send up Trovatore‘s corrosive cocktail of infanticide, jealousy and vengeance, he undermines it with his staging. It’s Trovatore as teen comic strip.
© ROH | Catherine Ashmore
Read the full review on Bachtrack.