LINCOLN CENTER

Metropolitan Opera
Il Trovatore - Verdi

"Anna Netrebko takes on her next new role at the Met as Leonora, the heroine who sacrifices her life for the love of the troubadour Manrico, sung by Yonghoon Lee. Dmitri Hvorostovsky is Count di Luna and Dolora Zajick sings Azucena. Marco Armiliato conducts Sir David McVicar’s Goya-inspired production.

“Ms. Netrebko sounded wonderful, singing with plush, penetrating sound and affecting character. I have seldom heard a more vocally exquisite and powerfully expressive account of the aching, and very difficult, aria ‘D’amor sull’ali rosee’... Mr. Hvorostovsky gave a gripping performance...[singing] with Verdian lyricism, dramatic subtlety and, when called for, chilling intensity... Dolora Zajick still owns [her] role... Yonghoon Lee gave a fearless and stalwart performance... Marco Armiliato drew sensitive, supple playing from the Met orchestra.”—New York Times"

Premiere: Teatro Apollo, Rome, 1853

"Verdi’s turbulent tragedy of four characters caught in a web of family ties, politics, and love is a mainstay of the operatic repertory. The score is as melodic as it is energetic, with infectious tunes that are not easily forgotten. The vigorous music accompanies a dark and disturbing tale that revels in many of the most extreme expressions of Romanticism, including violent shifts in tone, unlikely coincidences, and characters who are impelled by raw emotion rather than cool logic. The much-parodied story of the troubadour of the title, his vengeance- obsessed Gypsy mother, his devoted lover, and her evil aristocratic pursuer is self-consciously outrageous—that is, it is intended to outrage an audience’s sense of order and decorum. The librettist Cammarano’s frequent attempts to tone down the drama’s most extreme aspects only met with Verdi’s instructions to heighten them instead. The opera lives in a borderland between madness and reality, not perfectly at home in either realm. For anyone who truly immerses himself in its shadowy world, Il Trovatore provides an experience that is uniquely thrilling, even within the world of Romantic Italian opera."

Met Opera Crowd Cheers Ailing Russian Baritone

Three months after announcing he had a brain tumor, and still in the midst of treatment, the cherished Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky returned to the Metropolitan Opera on Friday evening as the Count di Luna in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore.”

An ovation greeted his first entrance, loud and long enough that he broke character to smile and pat his heart in appreciation. Three hours later, the curtain calls ended with the orchestra pelting Mr. Hvorostovsky with white roses, as his co-star, the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, appeared visibly moved. Ms. Netrebko and several colleagues donned T-shirts in support of Mr. Hvorostovsky earlier this summer at a concert in Moscow.

Since his Met debut on Oct. 26, 1995, in Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades,” Mr. Hvorostovsky has sung more than 170 performances with the company, concentrating on Russian and Verdi operas but also in Mozart, Gounod and Donizetti. He was the Count di Luna when the current “Il Trovatore” production had its premiere in 2009. And when he appeared this spring in Verdi’s “Don Carlo,” our critic Anthony Tommasini wrote that he “brought velvety legato phrasing, virile sound and his distinctive smoky timbre to Rodrigo.”

Mr. Hvorostovsky was originally scheduled for 10 performances of “Il Trovatore” this season, but he announced earlier this month that he would sing the first three — including Tuesday evening and next Saturday’s matinee, to be broadcast in movie theaters worldwide live in HD — then return to London to continue medical treatment.