Il Trovatore

From a purely musical perspective, this 2012 production of Giuseppe Verdi's popular 1853 opera, filmed at La Monnaie De Munt in Brussels, is excellent. Marc Minkowski leads the company orchestra in a rich, vivid performance of the romantic score, while the cast—Misha Didyk, Marina Poplavskaya, Scott Hendricks, Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo, and Giovanni Furlanetto—is uniformly fine. As is often the case, however, the idiosyncratic staging is problematic. Dmitri Tcherniakov presents the admittedly complicated story involving brothers separated as infants—one a nobleman, the other a warrior troubadour, both in love with the same woman—as a later reunion among the principals (the romantic trio, the gypsy who kidnapped one child and raised him as her own, and the man who narrates the tale) with a re-enactment of the eventual tragedy. All of the action takes place in a single drawing room, and in order to make this concept work Tcherniakov omits a couple of characters (reassigning their music to the five remaining singers), while relegating the chorus to offstage status (thus the famous “Anvil Chorus” is heard while the principal vocalists simply wander about the set). Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM stereo on DVD, and DTS-HD 5.1 and PCM stereo on Blu-ray, extras include an interview with Tcherniakov. Although this can't be considered a first choice over more conventional versions such as the 2010 production from the Teatro Regio de Parma (VL-9/13), the outstanding musical performance makes it an acceptable complement. Recommended. (F. Swietek)