Episode 014: Il trovatore with Patrick Summers

Emotional regulation wasn’t widely available in 15th-century Spain. Conductor and author Patrick Summers joins us to talk about Verdi’s Il trovatore, in which the outsider is portrayed as a human being with actual feelings, the villain has interiority, the heroine takes charge of the world around her, and the tenor is a golden retriever with some very seductive tunes.

Additional topics include: death by laughter, Carl Jung, Sir Walter Scott, and teddy-bear stabbings.

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Simon says:

“Everyone in Il trovatore is full of some strong emotion all the time.”

(100 Great Operas. and Their Stories)

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Il trovatore: The story

• Act I

• Act II

• Act III

• Act IV

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Recordings cited

• Joan Sutherland, Luciano Pavarotti Marilyn Horne, Ingvar Wixell, Richard Bonynge: Il trovatore (Decca, 1976)

• Jonas Kaufmann, Pier Giorgio Morandi: The Verdi Album (Sony Classical, 2013)

• Leyla Gencer, Mario Del Monaco, Fedora Barbieri, Ettore Bastianini, Fernando Previtali: Il trovatore (Myto, 1957)

• Anita Rachvelishvili, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Giacomo Sagripanti: Anita Rachvelishvili (Sony, 2018)

• Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Fedora Barbieri, Rolando Panerai, Herbert von Karajan: Il trovatore (Warner Classics, 1956)

• Barbara Frittoli, Salvatore Licitra, Violeta Urmana, Leo Nucci, Riccardo Muti: Il trovatore (2000)

• Antonella Banaudi, Luciano Pavarotti, Shirley Verrett, Leo Nucci, Zubin Mehta: Il trovatore (Decca, 1990)

• Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra: Tchaikovsky & Verdi Arias (Philips, 1990)

• Antonietta Stella, Carlo Bergonzi, Fiorenza Cossotto, Ettore Bastianini, Tullio Serafin: Il trovatore (Deutsche Grammophon, 1962)

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Further reading

• Julian Budden: Verdi (1985)

• Julian Budden: The Operas of Verdi, Vol. II (1992)

• Nicholas John: Il Trovatore (ENO Opera Guide, 1983)

• Martin Chusid: Verdi’s “Il Trovatore”: The Quintessential Italian Melodrama (2012)

• William Berger: Verdi with a Vengeance (2000)

• Scott Balthazar: The Cambridge Companion to Verdi (2004)

• Roberta Montemorra Marvin: The Cambridge Verdi Encyclopedia (2020)

• Susan Rutherford: Verdi, Opera, Women (2017)

• Herbert Lindenberger: “Anatomy of a Warhorse: Il trovatore from A to Z” (2010)

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Playlist

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