THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED

In the aftermath of Rigoletto, Verdi’s sole desire was to do something new. However, he became impatient, angry even, when the project to adapt El Trovador, the play by the Spanish dramatist Antonio García Gutiérrez, aroused only guarded enthusiasm from Salvatore Cammarano, Verdi’s librettist. Herein lays the paradox of Il Trovatore: in the eyes of its detractors it was the epitome of melodrama and yet the formal constraints imposed by Cammarano fanned the flames of the composer’s passions. Rather than true characters, the music portrays almost abstract figures consumed by passion. Anna Netrebko carries this enraptured music to new heights. She is accompanied by Ekaterina Semenchuk, Marcelo Alvarez, and Ludovic Tézier, in a new production by Alex Ollé.