Il trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi

Drama in four parts
Music by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Libretto by Salvatore Cammarano, completed by Leone Emmanuele Bardare, based on the drama El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez
Premiere: Rome, Teatro Apollo, 19 January 1853

Production Opéra de Monte-Carlo,
in coproduction with Teatro Real de Madrid and Royal Danish Opera

Italians call Rigoletto, La traviata and Il Trovatore the "trilogia popolare", an opera fan’s all-time favourites. The stories show Verdi’s passion for contemporary literature – Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas fils, the Spanish playwright Antonio García Gutiérrez –, and his fascination for characters from the edge of society. The deformed jester Rigoletto, the high-class escort Violetta Valéry, and the gypsy Azucena were considered unfit for principal roles in those days, especially when calling for your sympathy.
Il Trovatore is often ridiculised as a string of musical hits with a totally incomprehesible story. But when you boil it down, it is simple really: Two men fight for the love of a noble woman. One is a count, the other a gypsy soldier, but when in the end most of the main characters are dead, it turns out that the latter was the count’s long-lost brother.
The juxtaposition of female figures is great: the innocent object of desire, Leonora, tries to escape from her situation in the only ways possible for a girl of her standing – the monastery, and suicide. Azucena, on the other hand, is a magnificent portrait of a passionate, sometimes distraught, mature woman.