San Francisco celebrated the opening of its 87th opera season with last night’s gala performance of this rousing middle-period Verdi favorite. A largely black-tie audience filled the War Memorial Opera House with festive elegance on this sad anniversary of our nation’s greatest tragedy. Among the more uniform evening clothes one noticed long trains of taffeta, antique lorgnettes, gauche costume tiaras, at least one pair of Groucho glasses (an homage to the Il Trovatore performance featured in the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera), supercilious expressions worthy of the East Coast, and, this being San Francisco, a statuesque and utterly unaffected drag queen in full gown.
The historic evening marked the passing of company’s baton to a new music director, the talented Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti. Despite an inauspiciously sluggish playing of the national anthem, San Francisco’s new maestro led an incisive and passionate performance. Although Luisotti moved the orchestra unevenly at times, the imbalance reflected the opera’s violently changing moods and its characters tremendous emotional vicissitudes.
As the “last” bel canto opera, Trovatore falls awkwardly between the embellished artistry of the early nineteenth century and the gritty realism that began to appear in its middle decades. The musician facing such a challenge must pay homage to both styles. Luisotti’s inconsistencies addressed it effectively, though that may not have been his intention.
Despite the ambiguity in genre and the burdens of the global financial crisis, San Francisco fielded top talent in casting this production. In her San Francisco Opera debut Sandra Radvanovsky conquered Leonora’s demanding music with limpid artistry. Sonorous tones and insightful drama articulated the role with great intelligence. Her Act IV aria “D’amour sull’ali rosee” showcased effortless ascents into the upper register. Tenor Marco Berti appears to have escaped some of the roughness that characterized earlier performances I have heard him give elsewhere. He delivered Manrico’s part with real feeling. Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky added luster in di Luna’s part, singing with a sensitivity unusual for both the singer and the role. “Il balen del suo sorriso,” the love struck but prideful cavatina di Luna sings before his failed attempt to abduct Leonora, unrolled almost bashfully.
In other moments Hvorostovsky worked hard – perhaps a bit too hard — to overcome the dramatic staleness of which he is sometimes accused. The much talked about mezzo Stephanie Blythe brought her great musicianship and intelligent emotional tones to the role of Azucena. “Stride la vampa” resounded with burnished verve, as did her dynamic Act III scene. A supporting cast drawn largely from the San Francisco Opera’s Adler program for young singers filled out the performance. It was unfortunate that such fine singing fell into such a drab production.
David McVicar’s interpretation – a joint production with the Metropolitan Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago — is dominated by a giant gray wall that rotates to create the various spaces called for in the opera’s four acts. In most cases the wall drew too much attention away from the action and loomed at unnecessary heights above dwarfed principals and choristers. Its gray expanse reminded one of the great character actor Sig Rumann’s indignant exclamation at an out-of-place backdrop that appears after his character loses control of the performance in A Night at the Opera: “A battleship in Il Trovatore!” Nevertheless, we had one. Updating the action to the early nineteenth century added little more than a utilitarian grimness that suppressed the opera’s colorful musicality. Only in the famous Act II anvil chorus did the setting come somewhat to life.