United States Verdi, Il trovatore: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of San Francisco Opera / Eun Sun Kim (conductor). War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, 12.9.2023. (HS)
Production:
Production – Sir David McVicar
Revival director – Roy Rallo
Sets – Charles Edwards
Costumes – Brigitte Reiffenstuel
Lighting – Jennifer Tipton
Chorus director – John Keene
Cast:
Leonora – Angel Blue
Manrico – Arturo Chacón-Cruz
Azucena – Ekaterina Semenchuk
Count di Luna – George Petean
Ferrando – Robert Pomakov
Ruiz – Edward Graves
Inez – Mikayla Sager
Eun Sun Kim, in her third year as music director of San Francisco Opera, launched a new initiative – in which she will tackle at least one opera by Giuseppe Verdi and one by Richard Wagner each season – with a dazzling and vital performance of Verdi’s Il trovatore.
Sir David McVicar’s gloomy sets, designed by Charles Edwards for the co-commission with Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera (seen here in 2009), changed the setting from the fifteenth century to the early nineteenth century and Spain’s war for independence from Napoleon, to allow for a more colorful palette in Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s costumes and Jennifer Tipton’s lighting.
This performance focused squarely on the music, beginning with Kim’s forward-thrusting leadership in the pit. Time after time, she found orchestral gestures and details that fleshed out Verdi’s musical vocabulary and intertwined with the singers. The chorus became a powerful character itself, whether portraying soldiers, the denizens of a wandering Roma camp or nuns in a particularly touching ‘Miserere’. I have seldom heard these familiar choruses with such vitality and musical precision.
Trovatore is no stranger to San Francisco Opera. This is its twenty-fourth appearance in the company’s 101 seasons, but has not been done since 2009 when Sondra Radvanovsky, Marco Berti and Dmitri Hvorostovsky lit up the stage. The broadly international cast this time acquitted itself admirably, especially soprano Angel Blue in a role debut as Leonora, Mexican tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz as the heroic Manrico and Romanian baritone George Petean as the obsessed Count di Luna in a company debut.
Angel Blue – who appeared here in 2009, early in her career, as Clara in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess – amped up the intensity in her first go at Leonora. She was a big presence, with laudable precision in the notoriously challenging Verdi vocal mix of coloratura and sheer vocal power. One might wish that she could have backed off on the volume for some of the softer phrases, but her death scene, performed lying down in the arms of Manrico, was a marvel of velvety singing. These are refinements to come as she settles into the role.
As Manrico, Chacón-Cruz revealed a polished tenor voice that caressed the melodic line in intimate scenes and topped off a thrilling ‘Di quella pira’ at the end of Act III with a ringing high C that he held dramatically and securely. He seemed more assured and comfortable in the big opera house than in previous appearances as the Duke in Rigoletto and Rodolfo in La bohème. Making his company debut, Petean applied his supple baritone to the Count’s lovely lament, ‘Il balen’, and held his own impressively in military scenes and ensembles.
Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk replaced Anita Rachvelishvili two weeks before the opener as Azucena, stepping in seamlessly as the vengeful figure who sets the complicated story in motion and has some of the biggest, most crucial scenes. If ‘Stride la vampa’ wobbled a bit, her later arias and duets with Chacón-Cruz, Petean and Robert Pomakov (as Ferrando, the Count’s captain) hit all the right marks in tone, range and balance. The Act IV duet with Chacón-Cruz was especially fine.
In smaller roles, current Adler Fellow Mikayla Sager stood out as Inez, Leonora’s confidant.
Add it all up, and this made a worthy, if not quite transcendent, start to a 2023-24 season that includes three new operas. October brings the next chapter in Kim’s Verdi-Wagner project with Lohengrin.
Harvey Steiman