What could possibly go wrong?Įnter the director Adele Thomas, perhaps unfairly burdened with making her Royal Opera mainstage debut in this work. That has something to do with the challenges of casting, but also of staging it - one of the craziest plots in all opera, set to some of the most exciting music. A lyrical Leonora, she emphasises the music’s bel canto roots she may not offer exciting amplitude but she delivers the vocal goods, not least in a secure, archingly phrased D’amor sull’ali rosee in the final act.Īlthough representing the epicentre of Verdi’s output - the middle opera of his central trilogy - Il trovatore is much less frequently heard than Rigoletto and La traviata. It’s hard to imagine Netrebko in this lightweight production, but Rebeka was the Leonora when it opened in co-producing Zurich 18 months ago. London’s Royal Opera sat on the fence before quietly replacing her with the Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka, whereupon Eyvazov subsequently dropped out.
Despite this casting being left blank, it seemed obvious that the Royal Opera intended the Russian-Austrian star soprano Anna Netrebko for the role, not least because her tenor husband Yusif Eyvazov was listed as Manrico.īut cultural politics changed with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Netrebko found herself blacklisted by New York’s Metropolitan Opera yet welcome at Milan’s La Scala and the Vienna Staatsoper. Never mind the identity of Azucena’s lost son, one of the questions on which the plot of Il trovatore turns, the mystery (or not) surrounding Covent Garden’s new Verdi production when it was announced concerned who would sing Leonora.
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