NPR World of Opera: Il trovatore, by Giuseppe Verdi

For better or worse, Verdi's Il trovatore has everything a prototypical, or stereotypical opera is often assumed to have: brilliant vocal lines - and an incomprehensible plot. Compelling drama - and an incomprhensible plot. Shatteringly beautiful music - and an incomprehensible plot. You get the idea. Or, more to the point, you might listen to the opera and not get the idea.

But with Il trovatore, maybe that muddled plot has gotten a bad rap. Maybe it's not the story of the opera itself that's so confusing. Perhaps, the problem lies with the backstory - the stuff that happens before the opera even starts. So, we'll try to make that backstory easier to swallow by updating it a little - by translating it into events that might happen now, today. Here goes:

There's this aging woman who runs a daycare center. One of the children she cares for is the son of a well-known politician. Unfortunately, the young boy dies while in her facility. The death is completely accidental - the woman was not at fault. Still, the politician wants a scapegoat. He brings charges against the innocent caregiver. He hires expensive lawyers. The woman doesn't have a prayer. She's convicted, sentenced to death, and sent to the electric chair, where she dies a particularly gruesome death. Among the witnesses to the execution is her daughter - a wild-eyed young woman with an infant son of her own. The daughter vows revenge. Soon after, the politician's other son, a baby, disappears from his crib. Small, charred bones are later discovered in an incinerator, and it's assumed the boy was kidnapped and killed. The daughter is presumed resonsible, but she's long gone.

What really happened is this: The vengeful daughter did kidnap the baby, intending to burn him alive. She drove him to the incinerator, bringing her own child along. But in her blind rage, she threw the wrong baby into the flames - killing her own son. Then, she decides to raise the kidnapped boy as her own, to make up for her loss.

OK, so the upated story isn't much more plausible than Verdi's version. The Lifetime Channel wouldn't even buy this one. But, ask yourself this: We've got a woman mad with fury. She witnesses her mother's wrongful electrocution, and then kills her own son by mistake, instead of the hated son of her enemy. Why on earth would she show mercy toward the surviving baby, and raise him herself? Wouldn't he go straight into the flames as well? Think about that while you're listening to the opera - what happens next just might make more sense than you think.

The place to listen, of course, is on this week's World of Opera, when host Steve Curwood brings you a production of Il trovatore from truly hallowed ground, La Scala in Milan. And for more on the opera, tune in to NPR's At the Opera, half-an-hour before curtain.

LINKS:

The Verdi Festival Foundation
(libretto and synopsis of the opera)

La Scala

NPR's At the Opera

COMING NEXT WEEK: Mitridate, by W. A. Mozart