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Count di Luna’s servants keep watch for the mysterious troubadour who is the Count’s rival in love. To pass the time, Ferrando recounts a bit of family lore—the story of how the Count’s father put a nomad woman to death for bewitching one of his sons, and how the woman’s daughter abducted and burned the child for revenge.

Meanwhile, Leonora keeps vigil for some sign from Manrico, her mysterious troubadour. Di Luna, too, is waiting in the darkness. He is about to declare his love for Leonora when the strains of the troubadour’s song are heard. When Leonora runs into the night, she mistakes the Count for her lover. Manrico, finding the two of them together, accuses Leonora of treachery and demands a duel with di Luna.

Several months later, Manrico’s men prepare for the coming battle. Azucena relates the story of how her mother was accused of witchcraft, then burned alive. Azucena recounts how she attempted revenge by kidnapping the elder Count’s son, intending to throw him in the fire. She tells Manrico that, in her fury and despair, she mistakenly killed her own son. Manrico, who believes himself to be Azucena’s son, does not know what to make of the story. Azucena reassures him, reminding him of how tenderly she cared for him after he was wounded in the duel with di Luna. Just then a messenger arrives. Leonora has heard rumors that Manrico was fatally wounded in the duel. Devastated, she intends to enter the convent that very day. Against Azucena’s protests, Manrico hurries away to stop her.

The Count appears at the convent, determined to steal Leonora for himself. Moments later, Manrico arrives; his followers surround the Count’s men and Leonora and Manrico flee together.

(Intermission)

Ferrando tells the Count’s men they will mount an attack the next morning. When Azucena is captured and brought into their camp, Ferrando guesses her connection to the di Luna family and condemns her to death. Meanwhile, Manrico assures Leonora that they will vanquish their enemies and be joined in marriage. Ruiz appears with startling news: di Luna’s men have captured Azucena and are preparing to kill her. Manrico confesses to Leonora that he is Azucena’s son, then vows to save her or die trying. 

After Manrico is captured, Ruiz leads Leonora to the place where he and Azucena are imprisoned. Leonora prays that Manrico be consoled. Meanwhile, Manrico longs for death. Desperate to save Manrico’s life, Leonora visits di Luna and offers herself as the price for his release. When the Count agrees, she secretly takes poison.

Manrico tries to comfort Azucena, urging her to rest. As she falls asleep, Leonora arrives to tell Manrico he is free. When he realizes that she has offered herself as the price, he curses her. She reveals that she has taken poison, and he is devastated. Just then, di Luna arrives and sends Manrico to his death. Azucena, awakening too late, tells di Luna that Manrico was his brother.

Verdi chose Salvadore Cammarano, with whom he had collaborated on Alzira (1845), La battaglia di Legnano (1849) and Luisa Miller (1849), to write the libretto. While Verdi was eager to break out of conventional forms, traditional formal design was Cammarano’s great strength (seen to greatest effect, perhaps, in his libretto for Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor). The correspondence between the two reveals Verdi’s frustration with his librettist’s progress; then, to Verdi’s shock, Cammarano took ill and died before the libretto could be completed to his satisfaction. Leone Emanuele Bardare, a young Neapolitan poet, was brought in help Verdi complete and polish the piece.

The result, while perhaps not the innovation Verdi imagined when he first encountered Gutierrez’s play, is a work of extraordinary power. As the Verdi scholar Julian Budden wrote, “Take a composer at the height of his melodic vitality; fire his imagination through an extravagant and bizarre plot; then channel it through the most conventional of libretto structures – such is the recipe for one of the strangest and most powerful phenomena in the world of Italian opera.”

At the center of the story is Azucena, a woman living on the outskirts of society. Her story is in some ways the mirror image of Rigoletto’s, with a mother-son relationship replacing Verdi’s more typical father-daughter dyad. Despite Azucena’s lack of status, she emerges as one of opera’s strongest, most complex characters, a woman driven by two passions: her love for her son and her lust for revenge. While the operatic repertory is full of wronged women, she stands apart from her sisters in two important ways: she succeeds in achieving her life’s purpose (revenge), and she is still alive when the final curtain falls.

Within five years of its 1853 premiere, Il trovatore had been performed in more than 30 major cities all over the world and translated into languages including French, German, English, Russian, Polish, Portuguese, and Hungarian. The American premiere took place in 1855. It remains a cornerstone of the operatic repertory and would perhaps be performed even more often if not for its notorious casting demands: as Enrico Caruso famously quipped, all that is required for a successful performance are the four greatest singers in the world.

Adam Da Ros 
Assistant Director

WNO History: WNO Debut

Past: Dido and Aeneas and Idomeneo (Manitoba Underground Opera), Il barbiere di Siviglia (Burnaby Lyric Opera), The Scorpions’ Sting (Vancouver Opera in Schools), Un ballo in maschera (Opera Mariposa and Heroic Opera), The Old Man and the Sea (Turning Point Ensemble and ISCM 2017), The Off Chance (Tomo Suru Players), Il barbiere di Siviglia (Fraser Lyric Opera), Eight Songs for a Mad King (Nu:BC Collective)

Erhard Rom
Set Designer

WNO History: Silent, 2018-2019, Così fan tutte, 2021-2022, Written in Stone, 2021-2022, and Elektra, 2022-2023

Past: Semele and La bohème (Seattle Opera), Nixon in China (Royal Swedish Opera), Salome and Madama Butterfly (Atlanta Opera), The Shining and Carmen (Minnesota Opera), Moby Dick (Utah Opera), Rigoletto (Houston Grand Opera), Sweeney Todd, Zaide, Alcina, Tosca, Don Giovanni, The Rape of Lucretia, The Rake’s Progress, Falstaff, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Wolf Trap Opera), Susannah, The Marriage of Figaro, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, and Lucia di Lammermoor (San Francisco Opera)

Martin Pakledinaz
Original Costume Designer

WNO History: Vanessa, 1994-1995, 2002-2003, and Il trovatore  2000-2001, 2004-2005

Past: Hamlet, A Grand Night for Singing, and Anna Christie (Criterion Center Stage Right), The Diary of Anne Frank and Lend Me a Tenor (Music Box Theatre), Kiss Me Kate (Martin Beck Theatre), The Pirate Queen (Hilton Theatre), The Pajama Game (American Airlines Theatre), Golden Child (Longacre Theatre), Holiday (Circle in The Square Theatre), La Cage aux Folles (Palace Theatre), Inacent Black (Biltmore Theatre), I Won’t Dance (Helen Hayes Theatre), The Normal Heart (John Golden Theatre), Anything Goes (Stephen Sondheim Theatre), Blithe Spirit (Shubert Theatre), Gypsy (St. James Theatre), and Is He Dead? (Lyceum Theatre)

AJ Guban
Lighting Designer

WNO History: AOI 20, 16-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, Dictator's Wife 2016-2017, Champion, 2016-2017, Daughter of the Regiment, 2016-2017, Dead Man Walking, 2016-2017, Don Giovanni, 2016-2017, Justice at the Opera with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 2016-2017, Madama Butterfly,  2016-2017, The Marriage of Figaro, 2016-2017, Aida, 2017-2018, Alcina, 2017-2018, Barber of Seville, 2017-2018, Candide , 2017-2018, Don Carlo, 2017-2018, Little Prince, 2017-2018,  Eugene Onegin, 2018-2019, Faust, 2018-2019, La Traviata, 2018-2019, The Lion, the Unicorn, and Me, 2018-2019, Silent Night, 2018-2019, Tosca, 2018-2019, Otello, 2019-2020, Carmen, 2021-2022, Come Home: A Celebration of Return, 2021-2022, Così fan tutte, 2021-2022, Elektra, 2022-2023, La bohème, 2022-2023

Past: Urinetown, Metropolis, Equus, Journey to the West, Aida, Melancholy Play: The Contemporary Force, The Skin of Our Teeth, The 39 Steps Mysticism and Music, Moon Man Walk, The Last Five Years, and Children of Media (Constellation Theatre Company), L’Epreuve Villageoise (Opera Lafayette), The Tale of Two Cities (Synetic Theatre), Champion (Opéra de Montréal), La Traviata (Atlanta Opera)

S. Katy Tucker
Projection Designer

WNO History: Come Home: A Celebration of Return, 2021-2022, Così fan tutte, 2021-2022, Written in Stone, 2021-2022, Elektra, 2022-2023,

Past: Hansel and Gretel (Canadian Opera Company), Castor and Patience (Cincinnati Opera), Eurydice and Medea (the Metropolitan Opera), The (Re)volution of Steve Jobs (Austin Opera), Florencia en el Amazonas (Lyric Opera), Orpheus and Eurydice (Seattle Opera), Candide (Philadelphia Orchestra)

Priscilla Bruce
Hair, Wig, and Makeup Designer

WNO History: WNO Debut

Past: She worked with the Minnesota Opera and Guthrie Theater for 13 years as a wig, hair, and makeup artist. Additionally, she has worked with the Kennedy Center's Performances for Young Audiences, Signature Theater, Annapolis Opera, Peabody Conservatory, and Baltimore Opera.

Casey Kaleba
Fight Director

WNO History: Aida, 2017-2018, Tosca, 2018-2019, Don Giovanni, 2019-2020, Otello, 2019-2020, Samson and Delilah, 2019-2020, Carmen, 2021-2022, Così fan tutte, 2021-2022, and Elektra, 2022-2023

Past: Salome (Spoleto Festival), Blackbeard and The Gulf (Signature Theatre), Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 (Chesapeake Shakespeare Company), Romeo and Juliet (Wolf Trap Opera), King Lear (Guthrie Theatre), She Kills Monsters (Rorschach Theatre), Macbeth (We Happy Few Productions), Gilgamesh and Zorro (Constellation Theatre Company), Henry V, The Trojan Woman Project, and Coriolanus (The Lab at Convergence), Guard at The Taj (Wooly Mammoth Theatre Company), Othello (Avant Bard Theatre), Sinbad: The Untold Tale (Imagination Stage)

Steven Gathman
Chorus Master

WNO History: Chorus Master for more than 120 productions. Conducted Carmen, Der fliegende Holländer,
La clemenza di Tito, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Tosca, and Hansel and Gretel

Past: Macbeth, Capriccio, Albert Herring, L’enfant et les sortilèges, Gianni Schicchi, Dido and Aeneas, and The Medium

Sean Corcoran
Stage Manager

WNO History: More than 40 productions since 2006, including Tak­ing Up Serpents, 2019; The Little Prince, 2017; Better Gods, 2016; and Penny, 2015. The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson, 2022-2023, Blue, 2022-2023

Past: Leonard Bernstein’s MASS (the Kennedy Center), Lakmé and Maometto II (Washington Concert Opera), Orpheus in the Underworld and A Little Night Music (Madison Opera), United in Song: Celebrating the Resilience of America (Nouveau Productions/PBS), and Wolf Trap Opera, 2006–2013