La forza del destino

La forza is an adaptation of the play Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino, a drama in five days in prose and verse by Ángel María de Saavedra y Ramírez de Baquedano, Duke of Rivas, first performed at the Teatro del Príncipe in Madrid in 1835. Verdi and Piave were enthusiastic about the work of this curious character, a great man of Spain, the most famous playwright of his time, a painter and politician who even became president of the government for two days in 1854. 

To complete the libretto, a scene adapted from the Wallensteins Lager by Friedrich Schiller, one of Giuseppe Verdi's favourite authors, was added. Verdi travelled to St. Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire at the time, in December 1861 to attend the première of his new opera, which had to be cancelled, but finally premiered the following November at the Bolshoi Kamenny (later Mariisnky) Theatre. 

It was the start of an anecdote charged with "bad luck" that has remained forever associated with this Verdian title, also known as "la Innominable", a so-called black legend because of its numerous problems both in production and staging, including real deaths on stage. A great Italian fresco full of plot twists in which the curse of the father hangs heavy and overshadows everything. 

La Forza, like Rigoletto and Il Trovatore, is also a work of its time. In 1861, Verdi agreed to become a member of parliament to pursue his political ideals. However, "Il Risorgimento" was more ambitious than Verdi wanted, and the composer fell prey to a degree of scepticism. That same dark melancholy pervades the entire score, where the motif of fate recurs throughout the idea of redemption. In this co-production between the Opéra de Paris and the Gran Teatre del Liceu, directed by Jean-Claude Auvray, the opera becomes a place where dreams shatter against the wall of reality while a faint but toxic song of hope emerges. 

An immense canvas for this opera with minimalist scenography, full of romantic details and a score that demands sublime performers like Maria Agresta and Saioa Hernández to find all the nuances of Leonora's emotion (from joy through to the resignation of the last broken heart). Accompanying these is a cast featuring Brian Jagde as Don Alvaro, the man she loves, and Artur Rucinski, Don Carlo, the dark instrument of her destiny. Maestro Nicola Luisotti's brilliant conducting is a lesson in Verdian style applied to scenes of grand lyricism and refinement, alternating with comic passages.