Il Trovatore at His Majesty's Theatre

Il Trovatore (The Troubadour) is one of the most performed operas in the repertoire with an arresting plot, high drama, trickery, ultimatums, betrayal and death. Verdi explored the deep intimacy of human relationships between fathers and daughters, mothers, sons and lovers. In Il Trovatore relationships are questioned, tested and, in the end, destroyed in the name of revenge. When a gypsy woman is burnt at the stake for allegedly bewitching a child of the noble di Luna family, the gypsy’s daughter, Azucena, witnessing her mother’s death
swears revenge. Azucena steals the child’s brother, intending to throw him into the flames of her mother’s burning pyre. However, in her torment she mistakenly throws in her own child.
Horrified by her mistake she brings up the young Count Manrico, as her own child knowing that one day she might use him to achieve her revenge upon the child’s real family