Luogo e data di registrazione		Staatsoper, Munich (Germania) - 2 febbraio 1992
	Registrazione: live / studio		live recording
	Digital Remastering		Ton Eichinger / Othmar Eichingen, Gottfried Kraus
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		Orfeo | C 582 032 I | LC 8175 | 2 CDs - 70' 38" & 65' 50" | (p) 2003 | DDD
	Note		Eine Aufnahme des Bayerischen Staatsoper.

About the Present Live Document The premiere of Trovatore on 2 February 1992 was not recorded by Bavarian Radio - as is otherwise usual in the Edition Bavarian State Opera Live - but by the Munich National Theatre, in their own production. This publication is based on the archive tape thus obtained from them. Unfortunately, several errors and distortions were found on it that could be restored with the help of digital technology. Only in the 7th Scene (CD2, track 10), the distortions could not be eliminated completely without damaging the tape. The extraordinary artistic auality moved ORFEO International to publish this document nonetheless. Listeners will surely have understanding for this decision, considering the density and vitality of this unrepeatable operatic performance. Gripping Vitality and Emotional Density The unsurpassed level of vocal excellence required - four-fold - by Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore has been most precisely captured in an ironically tinged superlative attributed to Enrico Caruso: "A performance of Trovatore is very simple - one just needs the four best singers in the world!" Nonetheless, hardly an opera house in the world has hesitated to stage the centrepiece of Verdi’s Trilogia popolare - flanked as it is by Rigoletto and La Traviata. No wonder that Il Trovatore counts amongst the ten most frequently performed operas in the world. The Munich Court and State Opera, too, has repeatedly presented new productions of the work since its Munich premiere in 1859, most recently on 2 February 1992 - a production by Luca Ronconi with scenery by Margherita Palli (set design) and Gabriella Pescucci (costumes), conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli. The internationally assembled team of singers is an indication of two things: firstly, that hardly a first-rate Verdi singer has hailed from Italy during the past decade, and secondly that this deficit could be thoroughly compensated by equally fine vocal talents from other nations. In the case of the Leonora interpreter Julia Varady of Rumanian-Hungarian origin, one would even have to look very far back in the genealogy of great italian role predecessors in order to discover comparable vocal-theatrical excellence. Julia Varady's fascinating achievement in this role on that evening also gave the press occasion for uninhibited praise: Joachim Kaiser enthuses over the "wonder Varady" in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, singing praises to her "all outshining freedom of expression." The critics unanimously fell upon their knees before the soprano: characteristics such as "entrancing," and "uniquely beautiful" were overtrumped by others which called Varady's art a "singular richness," attesting her to be "captivating in the tones of tenderness and devotion, ravishing in the fire of passion." These are superlatives, to be sure, but they are justified. For the soprano, who has been instrumental in establishing the high vocal standard of the Bavarian State Opera for nearly the past two decades, was at the summit of her vocal possibilities at that time. Especially in Verdi roles such as Aida, Violetta (La Traviata), Abigaille (Nabucco), Leonora (La forza del destino), Elisabetta (Don Carlo) and Desdemona (Otello), she made many Munich opera performances into events of exceptional vocal rank. The fact that she is not documented in the CD catalogue in any of these roles is a great pity - an unpardonable omission on the part of record companies. It is a deficit which - with the issue of this live recording - can be remedied, in at least one case. Like her great model Maria Callas, Julia Varady counts amongst those singers who do not merely wish to please through velvety euphony, flawless polish or sheer purity of tone. Her unique vocal-theatrical imagination contains much more - an infallible dramatic instinct and the ability to master the scene, both acoustically and visually. Both of these are qualities that meant much more to Verdi than an impersonal, beautiful voice or the pleasingly perfect reproduction of the notes. Once, when a singer was recommended to the composer, he was completely uninterested in her brilliant vocal qualities, posing only this question: "And does she have dramatic passion in her voice?" The name and career of the Welshborn Dennis O’Neill, who simultaneously gave both his first Munich performance and his role debut as Manrico, are closely connected to the operas of Giuseppe Verdi. In over a dozen roles of this composer he has attained international acclaim as a versatile tenore spinto, as the singer of a vocal range and type that is only gradually formed in Verdi’s oeuvre with the figures of Ernani and Rodolfo (Luisa Miller), attaining full development with the role of Manrico and continuing with Riccardo (Un ballo in maschera), Alvaro (La forza del destino), Don Carlo and Radames (Aida). The manner of utterance of Verdi’s tenore spinto is considerably different from the lyrical-elegiac and coloratura-saturated vocal style of the tenore di grazia in the bel canto era of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. This difference is manifested in straight-lined realism and psychological credibility, dramatic density and emotional presence - characteristics that have coined the term accento Verdiano. As far as the particular affinity of the Welsh, of all people, for Italian music and opera is concerned, not only renowned singer-colleagues such as Margaret Price, Stuart Burrows and Bryn Terfel are prominent witnesses of Dennis O’Neill. George Bernard Shaw, too, recognised the southern component of his Welsh fellow-countrymen: "The Welsh are Italians in the rain," as he put it. It may be that therein lies the explanation for O'Neill’s success as an Italian tenor. The critics also praised his portrayal of Manrico as containing "tenor power of radiance," "lyrical mellowness," "security in the high notes and the verve of performance." Amongst the protagonist roles in Trovatore, Azucena is from the very outset the central personality in the piece who most ispired and interested Verdi. Only later did the composer decide to upgrade Leonora from a comprimaria to a female figure of equal rank. With Azucena, the alto voice gains an equal function alongside soprano, tenor and baritone in the importance of voval ranges for the first time in Verdi's work. Thanks to her dual function as perpetrator and victim, Azucena is a  bizarrely iridescent character, reflected not only in her vacillation between real perception and hallucinatory memory but also finding singing expression in the richness of contrast in her vocal style. This is a role, therefore which represents a stimulating, if thoroughly ticklish challenge for any mezzosoprano or alto. The Polish singer Stefania Toczyska enjoyed great success in Munich barely a decade earlier as Carmen. Not only do the relatively few mezzo and alto roles composed by Verdi occupy a place in her very broad repertoire - Ulrica (Un ballo in maschera), Eboli (Don Carlo), Preziosilla (La forza del destino), Amneris (Aida) - but also numerous roles in this vocal range in bel canto operas as well as in works of French and Russian composers. In the premiere of Trovatore, after initial reserve, Stefania Toczyska rose to a vehemently superlative vocal achievement. The critics especially pointed out the "seductively soft, dark tone of her mezzo voice," her "ample volume and dramatic power," her "polished vocal technique, her balance in the high and low ranges" and her "great vocal presence." If there is a vocal range most closely bound with Verdi's music-theatrical intentions and production, most congenialy corresponding to his demand for dramatic truth as a vocal medium, then it is the baritone. The reasons for this lie in the "natural" timbre of the baritone and its proximity to the "normal" male speaking voice. While Verdi more strictly reained the fundamental characteristics of other vocal ranges, he developed the baritone voice in a completely autonomous direction; indeed, he can be consiered the actual "inventor" of this vocal range in its current, present-day manifestation. Not only did he drive the baritone to higher top-notes than Bellini and Donizetti had required before him, but raised the entire general tessitura, calling for extended passages in a high or very high range as in the Aria of Conte di Luna Il balen del suo sorriso starting with L'amor, l'amore ond'ardo. In this manner he created a voice located between bass and tenor, closer to the tenor range, in fact. Due to their complexity of character, expressive variety and contrary natures, as well as their highly strung emotional intensity, the figures upon whom Verdi conferred his baritone require a very special interpretative flexibility, an almost tenorlike overtrumping quality as well as soft, tender lyricism. The common denominator existing between virtually all the role configurations of the Verdi baritone is its function as the antagonist to the hero, i.e. the tenor in general. This is usually a father-like personality (Simon Boccanegra, Rigoletto, Miller in Luisa Miller, Germont in La Traviata, Montfort in Les Vêpres Siciliennes, Amonasro in Aida) or an amorous rival (Carlo in Ernani, Gusmano in Alzira, Francesco Moor in I masnadieri, Seid in Il corsaro, Rolando in La battaglia di Legnano, Renato in Un ballo in maschera, Luna) - roles which, to a large extent, can be identified with Wolfgang Brendel. It is by no means purely by chance that Verdi occupies a central position in the broad repertoire of the Munichborn singer. And since 1971, Brendel has attained an important reputation in Munich, then in the entire world -  also with Verdi roles. The Bavarian State Opera could even experience him in role debuts as Germont, Simon Boccanegra, Renato, Luna, Don Carlo in La forza del destino and Posa in Don Carlo. Brendel could already be heards as Luna in the earlier 1973 Trovatore production of Ernst Poettgen. He then took over the role as Kostas Paskalis's successor; this time, he was himself the first choice for the premiere. Whoever may have experienced Brendel in the 1970s as a young lyric baritone reservedly and almost respectfully approaching this task, was astonished to note what an enormous developmental leap to a dramatic Verdi interpreter he has succeeded in making seince then. The critics, too, were unanimous in emphasising his "mighty overtrumping whilst preserving the mellowness of his velvety baritone," his "powerful, softly masculine timbre" and his "penetrating power, effortlessly drowning out the orchestra." If Italian singers were missing in this premiere of Trovatore - by no means to its detriment - the genuinely Italian component came into play through the conductor, Giuseppe Sinopoli (1946-2001). As a conducting composer, the Swarowsky pupil began his career on the podium under the heading of "Verdi." Still giving priority to his own musical production during the 1970s, he started his international conducting career from 1980 onwards with highly acclaimed productions of Macbeth in Berlin and Attila in Vienna (ORFEO C 601 032 I). The 1981 Munich premiere of his first opera Lou Salomé which he himself conducted lies on the temporal turning point of this transition. If there was no lack of critical voices in the appraisal of Sinopoli's work with the orchestra - above all in regard to the "craftsmanship" in his conducting ability - his unrelenting struggle to achieve source-critical thoroughness and his meticulous striving towatds absolute authenticity are beyond question. One cannot dispute the seriousness of the musical activity of a conductor who shut himself in the archives of Ricordi publishers all day in order to be certain of the original versions of Verdi's score manuscripts. He especially wanted the early Verdi to receive the just recognition that is his due, which is not the same thing as dry fidelity to the original. One could summarise his musical thinking and aspiration as a combination of subtlety, precision and ardent passion, a combination of italianità and intellectuality. His special interest was in those aspects which were unjustly misunderstood and neglected, such as the recitative. He did not regard it as merely a necessary, dry transition from aria to aria, but rather as important, plot-carrying action music. Another aspect was the "M-tata" ehythms - all too often undervalued as being too simple and nechanistic. Due to these, Verdi was long decried in Germany as being a "barrel-organ composer." Sinopoli knew how to gain a vibrant, lively pulse-beat out of these rhythms. The fact that "animated (the Bavarian State Orchestra) with fine-nerved accuracy, dramatic impulse and springing, rhythmic buoyancy to achieve an emphatic force of speech" was as much emphasised in the reviews as was his ability to "form glass-clear yet breathing, living lines, to gain illuminated tone colours with the utmost care whilst demonstrating a breathtakingly delicate, deeply heard agogic sense along with this." To summarize briefly: "Giusepe Sinopoli perfectly unites artistic refinement and a folkloristic quality reminiscent of the country fair." Sinopoli's music-making energetically contradicted those despisers of this score who regarded Trovatore as Verdi's reversion back to the vulgarity of the early works - a vulgarity he had overcome with Rigoletto. It is indeed true that Verdi originally wanted to continue the advanced compositional manner found in Rigoletto in the direction of a loosening of the traditional number scheme and an upgrading of the recitative. With the less than original libretto of Salvatore Cammarano, however, he saw himself pushed back onto the old rails. Verdi himself finally recognised that the crude and fantastic dramaturgy of the literary model, García Gutiérrez's drama El trovador, could best be structured by means of the conventional number principle. The score of Trovatore is made up almost exclusively of closed single pieces - arias, duets, terzetti and choruses with only one grand finale. The plot thus develops as a kaleidoscopic sequence of pictorial snapshots. The individual picture is the actual formal unit and basis of the dramaturgical construction, underlying a libretto built structly geometrically. The four parts are in turn divided into two independent individual pictures, of which the second is always much more extensive than the first. This impression of an isolated picture sequence is strengthened by the fact that Verdi, for the most part, dispenses with motivic development and thematic expansion. Themes turn up, are at best repeated and then replaced by others. Il Trovatore is therefore unsurpassed by any other Verdi opera in melodic variety. The figures are by no means characteristic personalities with differentiated psychology, subtle motivation and consistently growing maturation and developmental processes; rather, they resemble archetypes, which are so dominated by basic emotions such as love, hate jealousy or vengeance that they have forfeited their individuality, becoming purely carriers of passion. The aesthetic key-word varietà applies not only to the music but also to the style and structure of the opera as a whole. This includes the colour of the subject, richness in contrast of personages and actions and the alternation between different scenes of action. In spite of its predominantly gloomy tone, with Gypsy and military camps,manstery, castle and dungeon, the opera offers a broad palette of scenes with a strongly visual radiance. This is fascinatingly obvious in the first scene of the fourth part, perhaps the scene with the greatest density of moods in the entire opera. Here Verdi develops a refined, graduated aesthetic of space and sound with a  unique effect. Following the painful longing Adagio of Leonora's aria D'amor sull'ali rosee, the scenic space opens up, as it were, with a monks' choir intoning a Miserere without orchestral accompaniment behind the stage with only a death-knell on E-flat breaking through. Then begins a funeral march of Leonora, with a blacl foundation provided by the orchestral tutti in piano-pianissimo. A sonic spatial effect comes into being here anew through the urgent lamenting of the prisoner Manrico from the remote dungeon, accompanied by a solo harp. Finally, in the coda after the second verse of the funeral march, all the sound-layers are combined and the spatial distance is gradually removed. The overwhelming success of the premiere of Il Trovatore on 19 January 1853 in the Roman Teatro Apollo was in no small measure due to the scenic suggestive quality of such tableaux; the entire final scene had to be repeated on that occasion. Within a few years the work had been performed on nearly all the important European stages. The triumphant performance history of Trovatore is irrefutable proof that the often ridiculed muddle of the plot, appearing to lack any kind of concise logic and psychological probability, can in no way detract from the gripping vitality and emotional density of Verdi's music. Kurt Malisch (Translation: David Babcock)