'Il Trovatore' Blazes in Moments At Washington National Opera

Despite the fact that operas are three-hour long productions filled with music both vocal and instrumental, it is a handful of moments that often stand out and serve to make or break a production.

In the Washington National Opera’s production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore at the Kennedy Center, there are those divine moments that can make a single second last a year and still end too soon. These moments perforate a production that is equal parts imposing spectacle and simple elegance.

The essence of the story revolves around the destructive effects of vengeance. After seeing her mother unfairly put to death by a count, the gypsy Azucena vows vengeance upon the count’s family. She kidnaps the count’s son with the intention of burning him at the same pyre that was used to kill her mother.

But the passion that drove her to kidnap the child overtakes her and in her delirious state she ends up burning her own son to death rather than the count’s son. Instead of ending her drive for revenge, her fire is stoked and it is that passion which leads the plot inexorably towards the final climax.

After killing her own son Azucena adopts the count’s son. She raises him as a gypsy and loves him as her own. Even in her love for him though, is the fire of her wrath and it is her actions that lead to his death at the hands of his own brother.

The image of fire is repeated through performance, first as a pyrotechnic blaze during her telling of her tragic history and later in the end as a sterile fiery background, chilling in icy white light. Like fire, which consumes that which feeds it, Azuceno in the final moment of the opera encounters the paradox of achieving her ultimate revenge while witnessing the death of a son she has come to love.

The highlight of the production is the electric performance of Washington, D.C. native Denyce Graves playing the Azucena. In Act II she tells the story of how she revenged herself on the count that killed her mother. At times she is angry and passionate, overwhelming the audience with her power. At other times she seems almost lost, caught inside the tragedy unable to move past it.

It is both musically stunning as well as theatrically powerful. The emotion is complete in its burning desolation. And her body shows the wounds that soul has endured and the weight that bears down on her.

The production offers two other moments that are crystalline in their purity of sound and spectacle.

In Act III when Manrico goes to rescue his mother, Arlington, Virginia, native Carl Tanner releases the restraints on his voice and presents both a powerful and articulate vision of masculinity. He has a flexibility and control over his voice that belies the fact that he is still a rising star in the opera world.

The second moment comes in Leonora’s aria lamenting Manrico’s capture. In the piece Bulgarian soprano Krassimira Stoyanova presents a breathtaking portrayal of loss. She has a purity of tone that isn’t clouded by pretension or ornamentation, and in the final element of her scene she gently hangs a note which shimmers like an icicle above the audience, before shattering in uproarious applause with the final strains of music.

At times the weight of the story and the stoic, imposing staging begin to create a grinding friction, but the power of the score and some skilled performances give a life to the piece that continues to breathe until the curtain falls and the applause fades.