A Night at the Lyric: Il Trovatore
Home from Verdi's "Il trovatore" at Lyric Opera of Chicago. I freakin' LOVE this opera. From curtain up to curtain down, it's a whirlwind of desire, longing, violence, and vengeance. There's no overture, and the work tosses you in head-first with the story of a gypsy burned at the stake and a kidnapped baby thrown into the fire. “Di due figli vivea padre beato” (“Of two sons he lived a blessed Father”) primes the pump right away: from this racconto the work just steamrolls ahead in a wild, undulating, estrogen-and-testosterone-fuelled thrill-ride so intense my ovaries grew three times their size (don’t question the science, just trust me on this).
If you want vocal pyrotechnics and rapid-heartbeat music paired with layered characters (well, layered for an opera, and one that clocks in at a brisk 2:40), Verdi is where it’s at. “Il Trovatore” is, as the kids would say, a joint to which one can bounce (do the kids still say that??). You have most definitely heard selections from this opera in popular culture; most likely, you can hum a portion of the “Anvil Chorus” (go to YouTube and…wait…for…it). But I promise you, “Il trovatore” is hummable from beginning to end (like Bizet’s “Carmen”, but richer and more expansive).
Two of the four leads made their Lyric debut with this production, and I must lavish ALL THE KUDOS on Tamara Wilson and Artur Rucinski for asserting command of the stage and stunning the audience. It takes a lot for me to take any particular notice of a soprano (they really are a dime a-dozen, and I don’t find their roles all that interesting), but I certainly sat the fuck up and noticed Wilson. Baritone Rucinski (role of Count di Luna) brought me to tears with his rendition of “Il balen del suo sorriso” ("The light of her smile"); I hope Lyric brings him back for a recital or concert or just lets him stand in the lobby singing ‘Welcome to the Lyric’ at subscribers as we enter the building.
Russell Thomas and Jamie Barton were also pure perfection in their roles, though I don’t think the stage direction did Thomas any favours; his tenor is sublime, but the Manrico role can so easily slide into ‘petulant child’ or ‘ineffective rashness’ when set against the more decisive staging dictated by the music/motives of the other three leads (particularly as Count di Luna is, in many ways, an overpowering villain to Manrico’s rather gentler hero). Unfortunately, this was the case in too many scenes (lots of Thomas sitting in a collapsed posture, standing with crossed arms, and sudden forceful handlings of others that felt more ‘immature outburst’ than ‘pushed to absolute emotional limit’). It was frustrating; however, his “Ah sì, ben mio, coll'essere” ("Ah, yes, my love, in being yours”) so enraptured me that I ceased to care about the staging. The best way I can describe his voice is “swaddling”; I felt swaddled by his aria, ensconced, enveloped, warmed.
All of that being said—the chorus and orchestra often stole the show (that is the nature of a lot of Verdi’s work, though; he gives meat to the chorus, they’re not just background or filler, and the ways in which the chorus and the orchestra must complement one another makes you wish someone would compose an entire Grand Opera for Chorus and Orchestra and Everyone Else Take a Seat). And while we’re on the subject of “show stealing”—there might not be a production crew on Earth that I can love as much as I love the Lyric’s team, and after tonight’s show, I came straight home and gave the Lyric more of my money in donations. Many rounds of drinks to the entire team that made this production succeed on, around, with, because of, and/or despite a scenic design centered entirely on a giant Lazy Susan (I am assuming that the almost 360-degree rotation in near total silence during Act Four was to give the audience proper pause to marvel at the mechanics before us).
I gave tonight’s encounter a standing ovation (I rarely do that; when I give a performance a standing ovation, it means I had something damned near a religious experience). If you are at all interested in experiencing opera, even if just once, please go to the closing performance of “Il trovatore” this Sunday at the Lyric.
