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A revival of Verdi's masterpiece, with its famous overture and grand human drama
A tragic masterpiece depicting the two men and a woman as they are swept by a cruel and capricious fate towards a blood-drenched conclusion. Verdi's dramatic and beautiful score works with the libretto to relate with eloquence a story that unfolds at a dizzying pace. The highly realized overture is justly famous, and often performed independently. The production is based on the revised version first performed at La Scala in Milan [in 1869], subsequent to the opera's debut at the Bolshoi Theatre in St. Petersburg.
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Synopsis
Spain, in a time of civil war. Leonora, daughter of the Marchese di Calatrava, attempts to elope with her lover, Don Alvaro, but they are discovered by her father the Marchese, who will not consent to their relationship. Don Alvaro throws his pistol to the ground to show he will not resist, but it goes off, fatally wounding the Marchese, who dies cursing his daughter. The couple flee, pursued by Leonora's brother Don Carlo, who has vowed to avenge his father's death. Leonora enters a convent. Don Alvaro, whose flight takes him to the front lines of the civil war, saves the life of an officer, and the two pledge brotherhood, at first failing to recognize each other. But the officer, who is Don Carlo, discovers Don Alvaro's true identity, and challenges him to a duel, in which Don Carlo is mortally wounded. At this point Leonora appears, but her brief moment of happiness at reunion with Don Alvaro is destroyed when Don Carlo summons his last dying strength to run her through with his sword.
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