Despite some compelling things musically, this was one strange Trovatore

Il Trovatore overall is not one of my favourites from Verdi, the story is convoluted and at times ridiculous but the characters are interesting(especially Azucena) and Verdi's score is one of his most beautiful and richest melodically. This production does have some things to admire, all of it musically, but overall was a bit of a disappointment, considering the opera and that you have a talented conductor like Daniel Barenboim on board and Placido Domingo and Anna Netrebko making their role debuts.

Of the performances, the best two came from Anna Netrebko and Marina Prudenskaya. Netrebko marvels as Leonora, you can hardly believe that she had not taken on this role before. She is in great voice, with a dark and creamy quality that shows no signs of being taxed by the role's technical challenges(D'Amor Sull'Alli Rosee is a killer but is sung beautifully here and deeply felt), the top notes are lovely whether hit powerfully or floated(like in D'Amor Sull'Alli Rosee) and her legato line is as smooth as silk. She is also a committed actress, some of her stage direction is rather aimless but she is still communicative and expressive, her emotion so genuine that it was easy to be touched by her. Prudenskaya's Azucena is outstanding, her warm, evenly-produced voice is refreshingly brighter and younger-sounding than most in the role without sounding too youthful. Nothing sounded forced or unsteady here, and she shows herself to be an intelligent musician, while dramatically she's a tour-De-force, being both deranged and affectingly tragic.

Adrian Sampetrean is also effective as Ferrando, he sings elegantly and he is an authoritative actor on stage as well as a hugely compelling storyteller, making one really want to stay and hear Ferrando's dark tale despite what was going on on stage enough to make one want to do the opposite. The Ines of Anna Lapkovskaya is very touching and sympathetic. The orchestral playing is first rate, with a powerful climax, very sensitive accompaniment ensemble in Il Balen and D'Amor Sull'Alli Rosee, a heroic rousing quality in Di Quella Pira and a nuanced Miserere. The chorus sounded well-rehearsed with beautifully balanced, musical singing and they do look engaged at least. Some find and will find the video projections an annoyance, to me they were quite clever and striking and helped bring some much needed colour.

Placido Domingo, Gaston Rivero and Daniel Barenboim's conducting got a mixed reaction personally. As a big fan of Domingo, this was not him at his best, kudos to him for doing a role so completely different to usual and for attempting it at 72 years old at time of recording. Again, Domingo's musicality, style and acting are very good and there is evidence of ringing burnished tone. He brings total commitment and command to a role that can be either be multi-layered or stock, here with how the character was directed it was not really either, hardly a cipher but the role has been more interesting. However, he did sound tired, underpowered(he forces the tone for a good deal of the first half) and uncertain, with the tempo of Di Geloso Amor Sprezzato sounding like it'd caught him by surprise. Rivero was a last-minute replacement for Aleksandrs Antonenko and he copes bravely, everything about his singing is accurate and competently managed and in the lyric parts the voice is warm and ardent with evidence of beauty of tone. But in the heavier parts of the role the voice did sound like it was under a lot of pressure with the vibrato sounding so harsh it was almost bleaty, and he is not the best of actors, sometimes looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights and often oblivious to what was going on around him. Barenboim's conducting shows plenty of rhythmic drive and dramatic energy and he shapes and phrases very musically. It is though not always a very sympathetic reading, with Stride La Vampe feeling jumpy and in need of more expressive variety and with Di Geloso Amor Sprezzato a lot of it sounded out of sync.

Visually and staging-wise, it was in these areas where this Berlin Il Trovatore fell down heavily. The cubic set was very unattractively gloomy and bare(even for an opera with a dark story), with few props to make it more interesting to look at, to the extent that signs of colour was more than welcome. The costumes were a garishly weird mish-mash of styles with Leonora and Azucena made up to look like harlequin dolls and the men in dark Renaissance "Roundhead"-like costumes, to the extent that it was impossible to determine when and where the production was set. The lighting is as gloomy and one-dimensional as the set while the wigs and make-up are a fright, the less said about the deranged, creepy Colombine look for Azucena the better but seeing an attractive woman like Netrebko made up to look so awkward and unflattering was a shock to the system. 

The staging has its moments, like the two big scenes between Leonora and DiLuna(Act 4 especially, that actually did have tension and desperation), the simplicity of D'Amor Sull'Alli Rosee and the moving scenes between Manrico and Azucena. But overall it was a messy mix of static drama and silly Commedia Dell Arte- especially for the chorus- that fails to make the characters properly interesting and make a convoluted story any clearer. Some touches are idiotic too, Il Balen would have fared far better with Domingo on his own on stage but the two big ones were in Act 4, Manrico's death was clumsily executed and jars with what is said in the libretto, Azucena calling out for him when he was there dead just feet away made little sense while changing when Leonora prepared for suicide and the method was rather ridiculous and improbable(at least to me).

Overall, has some compelling things musically but this was a very strange Trovatore. 5/10 Bethany Cox

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Verdi's Il Trovatore, premiered in Rome 1853, is a highly popular opera requiring exceptional singers. With Rigoletto and La Traviata, it completed Verdi's defining trilogy, cementing his status as top opera composer.

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Berliner Staatsoper im Schillertheater, Berlin, Germany

Plácido Domingo, Daniel Barenboim, Anna Netrebko, Marina Prudenskaja, and Gaston Rivero in Il Trovatore (2014)

Marina Prudenskaja in Il Trovatore (2014)

Plácido Domingo, Daniel Barenboim, Anna Netrebko, and Gaston Rivero in Il Trovatore (2014)

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