Beginning in 1855, Giuseppe Verdi began the task of preparing the score of his opera lI Trovatore, which had opened to great success in Rome in 1853, to be performed in Paris in a French-language translation as Le Trouvère. Along with setting the music to Emilien Pacini’s sensitive translation of the libretto, Verdi re-orchestrated various sections of the score. Amongst these changes is the ad dition of a cantabile for Azucena in the first part of Act III, the removal of Léonore’s cabaletta at the beginning of Act IV, and the lengthening of opera’s finale with the addition of a coda. However, perhaps most well known of the differences between the Italian and French versions is the addition of a twenty-five minute ballet to the beginning of Act Ill to meet the expectations of the Paris opera public.

As part of the Verdi Festival’s dedication to producing Verdi’s oeuvre in its entirety, Robert Wilson has been commissioned to direct and design this often forgotten Paris-Version of Il Trovatore for Parma under the baton of Roberto Abbado. Following his much acclaimed productions of Aida, Macbeth, and La Traviata, this will be Wilson’s fourth staging of a Verdi opera. Having fallen into relative obscurity since its 1857 Paris premiere, despite the great lengths which Verdi took to adapt one of his opera’s to the musical and aesthetic taste of the Paris of the Second Empire, this production of Le Trouvère will not only allow audi. ences to rediscover Verdi through the eyes of Robert Wilson but also in the the compositional changes made to the work by Maestro Verdi himself Following the opening in Parma in September 2018, further stag ings are planned for Bologna in 2019. These performances, also conducted by Roberto Abbado, will use Verdi’s original Italian score and libretto. It is still unknown if the music and staging for the Act IiI ballet will be conserved in the Bologna production.

– José Enrique Macián