The plot is incredibly, incredibly, complicated of trovatore.
The music is also incredibly rich and deep.
When did you first come to the score?
Quite late, five years ago because I couldn't figure it out,
how it works, all the plot of trovatore.
There is the mother, there is the daughter,
there is the father count, there is the son count.
You're already completely messed up by the end of the first Act.
In the second you see everything continuing and developing. You are still there but
who killed who?
What makes sense, what is a miracle of this opera Il trovatore, is the fact that
when you attend a performance or you conduct, everything makes absolute sense.
Of course, I can tell precisely the story but it's not the point of trovatore.
- So what is the point?
The point is the quality of the music.
Of course, some of the critics have mentioned they were a little bit against
the too melodramatic element of trovatore.
You think, 'Oh! This is so exciting, it can not get even more exciting'.
Verdi was able to add more excitement, more fire.
You think, 'Oh! This fire is almost unbearable'.
He has still something to offer. So the temperature he gets,
artistically and emotionally, is so high.
That's why he is engaging, he is just keeping you on the edge of your seat.
Also because all of the opera is about fire, blood, and darkness.
Without these three elements, without one of these three elements, you don't have trovatore.
Some critics say, this is almost like looking back
to a kind of bel canto of before, but how does Verdi do that?
In the orchestration and the vocal writing, how does he do it
that he makes you feel like there is something else driving the show,
that there is this, kind of, mysterious force working and that darkness and that melodrama?
I think it's the same story when you go into a rock concert in a big stadium.
Most of the critics say, 'Oh but the music is so simple'.
Yeah, but you go there and there is such a big amount of energy.
You cannot resist.
With Verdi it's the same.
Some critics say *hums* with that element
from *sings* or *sings again*.
So there is always this element.
Also, we don't have to forget it's sometimes our heart beat.
It's not tum. It's tum te, tum te, tum te.
One, two, three, one, two, three.
So what for you is the greatest challenge?
Oh, it's like any opera, to be able to tell the story through the music.
It seems the easiest thing. It's the most complicated.
Just to be able to tell the story using the words by Cammarano, the music by Verdi
the acting of the singers, the voice of the singers,
the cooperation with the director, and just try to tell the story
in the most believable way.
What you described about it having this relentlessness to it,
how do you pace that throughout the whole opera?
Because it starts and it is like the inevitability of everything coming horribly crashing down.
The most difficult thing is trying not to be ashamed.
- How do you mean?
I mean, you don't have to be afraid to be emotionally naked when you conduct.
You have to trust Verdi. If Verdi put something unbearable, horrible,
he wrote it, go for it. Anyway it's his responsibility.