Opera

Pretty Yende Stars in Verdi’s Il trovatore at Opéra de Monte-Carlo

GILLY LLOYD9 March, 20265 Mins read203

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A coproduction of Giuseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore between the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Teatro Real de Madrid and the Royal Danish Opera opens in Monte-Carlo this March.

Starring Piero Pretti in the title role, the opera also features Artur Rucinski as Conte di Luna – Manrico’s love rival – Pretty Yende as Leonora – the object of their affections, but who is in love with Manrico – and Varduhi Abrahamyan as Azucena – Manrico’s mother. Giacomo Sagripanti conducts, and staging is by Francisco Negrin.

Verdi wrote his four-part opera to an Italian libretto which was largely written by Salvatore Cammarano, and finished by Leone Emmanuele Bardare, after Cammarano’s death. It was based on the drama El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez.

^{Video via Fredonia Opera House on YouTube}

Il trovatore – Italian for a troubadour, a composer and performer of lyric poetry during the Middle Ates – is a tale of doomed love, the destructive nature of revenge, and the inescapable influence of the past. The plot revolves around four main characters – Manrico, Azucena, Leonora and Count di Luna. A story of witchcraft, murder, and vengeance, which begins in the acts of the parents, it tells of Azucena’s mother who is burned at the stake for suspected witchcraft, and avenged by Acuzena when she throws the child of her executioner (the father of the current Count) into the fire. Leonora finds herself in the middle of this family feud. She has fallen in love with a mysterious troubadour who sings of his love at her window, and so rejects the advances of Count di Luna. Azucena has, in fact, raised Count di Luna’s brother as her own child, calling him Manrico. It is not until the final blow is struck and Manrico dies at di Luna’s order, does Azucena reveal that the child which she threw into the fire was her own son, and that the Count’s rival was his brother.

The opera premiered at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on the 19th of January, 1853.

^{Video via Deutsche Grammophon – DG on YouTube}

The role of Manrico is taken by Italian tenor Piero Pretti who has performed in some of the world’s most important opera houses, such as La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Wiener Staatsoper and the Royal Opera House, performing leading roles in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera and Il trovatore. Piero Pretti’s recent and upcoming engagements include Verdi’s La traviata at La Scala, Il trovatore at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl, Verdi’s I masnadieri at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Puccini’s Turandot at the Atlanta Opera, Verdi’s Nabucco and Un ballo in maschera at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Verdi’s Aida at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville and Puccini’s La bohème at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

Pretty Yende, who sings Leonora, has, according to The Washington Post, “A voice that can reach to the stars”. The South African soprano made her debut at La Scala, Milan, and her international breakthrough at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Regarded as one of the brightest stars of the classical music world, Pretty Yende has appeared at nearly all of the major opera houses of the world, including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Opéra National de Paris, Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Opernhaus Zürich and Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and Vienna Staatsoper. She has also performed in many major concert venues.

^{Video via Deutsche Grammophon – DG on YouTube}

On 28th March, Leonora will be sung by Alexandra Marcellier who made her debut as Vitellia in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at the Salzburg Festival in 2024, followed by her triumphant debut at the Opéra Bastille in Paris as Cio-Cio San, which she took over at short notice in the final performance of the Madama Butterfly series.

The role of Count di Luna is taken by Polish baritone Artur Ruciński who has risen to international fame in recent years. His future engagements include the roles of Marcello in La bohème at Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Conte di Luna at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Germany, and at Teatro Real in Madrid. He has appeared in many of the world’s famous opera houses and concert halls, and the late music journalist Karl Löbl wrote of his role in Orff’s Carmina Burana: “Baritone Discovery at Vienna Musikverein – take note of the name Artur Ruciński and go to every opera in which you can hear this singer…”. Highlights in his career include appearances in I Masnadieri at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and Festival Verdi in Parma, Il Trovatore at the Vienna Festwochen, and at the Munich State Opera of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. This was followed by a new production of Verdi’s Falstaff at the Opera of Frankfurt am Main, the role of Ezio in Verdi’s Attila in Warsaw and Eugene Onegin in Bologna.

^{Video via Opéra national de Paris on YouTube}

Varduhi Abrahamyan who takes the role of Azucena, began her professional career at the Opéra de Paris, where she has since appeared in a different repertoire almost every season, including such roles as the title in Bizet’s Carmen,Isabella in Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri, Preziosilla in Verdi’s La forza del destino, Paulina in Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dameand Olga in his Eugene Onegin. Further highlights in her career were the title role in Handel’s Alcina at the Theatre dès Champs Élysées, at the Zurich Opera and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo with Cecilia Bartoli, Dalila in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila at the Palau de les Arts di Valencia, where she made her debut in Verdi’s Nabucco.

Also in the cast are Evgeny Stavinsky as Ferrando, Annunziata Vestri as Inès, Reinaldo Macias as Ruiz and Benoit Gunalons as a messenger.

Giacomo Sagripanti is an Italian conductor who has recently completed an engagement at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, leading performances of Verdi’s La traviata, and following this engagement at Monte-Carlo Opera, he will go on to conduct performances of Verdi’s Macbeth at Oper Frankfurt. He leads the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Choir of the Monte-Carlo Opera in four performances of Il trovatore at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo from 22nd to 28th March. Further information and details of ticketing can be found on the Monte-Carlo Opera website.