Il Travatore

The mournful, murmurings of the cellos create an ominous mood driving the beginning of Verdi's Il Travatore. The amazing cast at last night's performance at the Metropolitan Opera took us on an impressive journey through this tale of brotherly love and hate and the competition for the love of Leonora. The plot is a challenging one to follow, but the music is Verdi at his bel canto best and flows from one gorgeous aria to the next. Sondra Radvanovsky sang the role of Leonora. Her nuanced, lyrical performance was spellbinding as she moved through the exhilarating music that Verdi wrote for that role.  Dolora Zajick was the gypsy mother of Manrico. She, too, lit up this role with power. Marcelo Alvarez sang the tenor role of Manrico. There is a Pavarotti-like resonance to his voice. And, the well-known Dmitri Hvorostovsky sang the baritone role of the Count di Luna. I had been looking forward to hearing him in this role. His powerful baritone voice complemented the other voices in the various duets, trios and quartets. He gave a marvelous performance in the DVD recording of Eugene Onegin with Renee Fleming. Prolonged applause and multiple bravos greeted every aria along the way and went on for some time at the end of the performance. The word among veteran opera goers in my section of the hall was that this was an amazing cast to have been assembled for this opera. Certainly, that was my opinion by the end of the evening.