User Reviews

Filmed live in Berlin, Gaston Rivero, Anna Netrebko and Plácido Domingo star in one of Verdi's greatest operas, under the baton of Daniel Barenboim, Il Trovatore is without question one of Verdi's most dramatic masterpieces - as well as one of his most melodic and including the irresistible 'Anvil Chorus' and the tenor showstopper arias triumphing in a uniquely demanding role for a Verdi soprano and Anna Netrebko sings wonderfully: creamy tone, excellent expression allied to create a wholly integrated performance. Marina Prudenskaya was the only singer who had been in the Vienna cast. Her beautiful, smooth, even tone, ideal legato and capacity for vocal expression brought back memories of those halcyon years when Verdi mezzos of this quality were more common. No crude chest notes, just excellent singing in both of Azucena's arias. Matching her for vocal elegance and smoothness was Adrian Sampetrean as Ferrando. He and his retainers appear dressed as puritans of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries on their way to pray. Top hats, smart black clothes and ruffs around their necks. The costumes are a mi-sh-mash of indeterminate period and style. Plácido Domingo, once the most- sought-after Manrico of his generation, stars for the first time as Conte DI Luna, radiating the Domingo warmth of past times with his magical stage presence that ennobles every evening of opera. Uruguayan Tenor Gaston Rivero as Manrico arrives looking almost exactly like Edward Scissorhands minus the shears and it's equal parts charming and sad. It's not that he's a full head shorter than Ms. Netrebko that's bothersome because he isn't only half a head and she knows how to do the famed "Soprano Slouch." He is, however, a full head shorter than Mr. Domingo and also a few decades younger and the plot, if you're familiar with it... well, never mind. It looks like in subsequent performances his costume and makeup were considerably butch-ed up to much greater effect. In the meanwhile he does arrive with a lute strapped to his back so someone, somewhere, is paying attention. Much is made in the liner notes about Mr. Rivero's "bright" sound in contrast to Mr. Domingo as left-handed apology for his having to share the stage with the operatic Zeus. Surely the last place on earth any tenor would like to be singing Manrico would be right in front of one of its former foremost exponents. In the wedding scene that follows Mr. Rivero gives us a heartfelt performance no playing around with the pitches. Bravo. Ms. Netrebko enters. like all good divas after the interval, in the identical black and white costume only with the colors reversed. She's completely in the groove during "D'amor," an absolutely stunning interpretation although I wouldn't advise following along with a score and a metronome. She's very free with the music and even seems to take Barenboim by surprise once or twice. She polishes off the "Miserere" with no trouble and then gives us but a single verse of "Tu Verdi," but I forgive her. Meanwhile the director has been altering the time-line of events, oh so slightly, and it does add a little extra suspense to the proceedings. She and Domingo make short work of the duet and my only quibble with the final scene is that they actually have to alter the text at a climactic moment to accommodate the staging. If only for Ms. Netrebko's performance this would rate at least a 6 and in-spite of her co-stars being either too short or too long in the tooth the production is very evocative and never boring so I raise it up to an 8. Under Daniel Barenboim, conducting Il Trovatore for the first time, the Staatskapelle orchestra performs with energy and drive.

Director Philipp Stölzl has made many video clips and feature films. He is particularly well known for his work with the German rock group Rammstein and the American pop icon Madonna. He makes no attempt to link the disparate parts of Verdi's story, but moves between the constantly shifting scenes using a very basic box-shaped set with two sides. There are few stage props. A fired rifle and cannon for the attack on Castillo being exceptions. With imaginative lighting this is one of the few effective incidents. A large part of the staging involves surrealist paintings being projected onto the walls and trap doors in the floor for entrances and exits. Picture was excellent on my DVD screener and 5.1 digital sound is superb. Deutsche Grammophon has finally gotten the news that the world is coming to an end and has opted for very nice, tr-fold, Eco- friendly, cardboard packaging. It's all very colorful, as befits this spectacle, blasted all over the inside cover."

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