Act I

Act II

Act III

Act IV

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Libretto

The most popular opera of its time and acclaimed since its creation, Il Trovatore single-handedly illustrates the magic of opera. Returning to the stage of the Opéra Bastille in a production by Àlex Ollé, one of the six artistic directors of the Catalan collective La Fura dels Baus, this opera with its numerous twists and turns has all the ingredients of a cloak-and-dagger novel, including castles, soldiers, burnings at the stake, and outlaws...Àlex Ollé has chosen to set Il Trovatore in the context of the First World War, thus justifying the extreme situations which the characters have to face: love, jealousy, hate and the desire for vengeance…Based around Antonio García Gutiérrez’s Spanish classic El Trovador ( 1836), the intense, complex libretto is transcended by the beauty of the singing and the director’s turbulent yet visionary vitality. Orchestre et Choeurs de l’Opéra national de Paris Coproduction with De Nationale Opera, AmsterdamA production of the Paris National Opera - Telmondis - Mezzo With the support of the Orange Foundation, sponsor of the Paris Opera's audiovisual broadcasts and with the support of the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animéeDirector: Vincent Massip © Opéra national de Paris - Telmondis - Mezzo - 2016Picture: © Charles Duprat / OnP

<ul><li>Ferrando: Captain of the Count di Luna’s guard</li><li>Leonora: Lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Aragon</li><li>Ines: Leonora’s confidante</li><li>The Count di Luna: A young nobleman of Aragon</li><li>Manrico: A troubadour, he is Count di Luna’s political rival and rival in love</li><li>Azucena: A gypsy, believed to be Manrico’s mother</li><li>Ruiz: A partisan of Manrico  </li></ul>

Il Trovatore

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The most popular opera of its time and acclaimed since its creation, Il Trovatore single-handedly illustrates the magic of opera. Returning to the stage of the Opéra Bastille in a production by Àlex Ollé, one of the six artistic directors of the Cata

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi was born in 1813 into a modest but relatively well-to-do family in the hamlet of Le Roncole, near Busseto. He received his first musical training from the village organist. In 1824, he became the organist at the church in Busseto. After following music lessons with the organist and composer Ferdinando Provesi, he was noticed by Antonio Barezzi, a spirits merchant and music aficionado who also founded the Filarmonici (Societa filarmonica), the town’s amateur orchestra. Barezzi would become Verdi’s patron and sponsor and the composer would ultimately marry Barezzi’s daughter Margherita in 1836. A stipend enabled him to continue his studies in Milan where he took private lessons with Vincenzo Lavigna, a teacher at La Scala, and a friend of Rossini. On the recommendations of the impresario Bartolomeo Merelli, his first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio was performed at La Scala in Milan. For a short while following the death of his two children and then his wife Margherita, and after the relative fiasco that befell his second opera, Un giorno di regno, Verdi considered abandoning music altogether. However, he started composing again when Merelli offered him the libretto for Nabucco. That opera was a huge success at its premiere at La Scala on March 9, 1842 and it did not take long before all of Italy was singing Va pensiero, the anthem in which the chorus of slaves lament their lost freedom. From then on, Verdi became the bard of Italian unification. Most of the works that followed would be operas with patriotic undertones (I Lombardi alla prima crocciata, Ernani, Giovanna d’Arco, Attila, La Battaglia di Legnano…). In 1847, Verdi left for London for the world premiere of I Masnadieri, then settled in Paris where he met up with Giuseppina Strepponi, who would create the role of Abigaille. They would never be separated again. Verdi purchased the property at Sant’Agata, near Busseto and openly enlisted in the struggle for the liberation of Italy, which was then occupied by the Austrians. After 1850, Verdi was unrivalled in Italy. In particular, his popular trilogy, Rigoletto – Il Trovatore – La Traviata dates from this period.Les Vêpres siciliennes (Paris, 1855), Simon Boccanegra (La Fenice in Venice, 1857), Un ballo in maschera (Rome, 1859), La Forza del destino (Saint Petersburg, 1862), Don Carlos (Paris, 1867), Aida (Cairo, 1871), the Messa di Requiem (Milan, 1874), Otello (Milan, 1887), and Falstaff (Milan, 1893) would follow. In 1861, he was elected deputy of Busseto. He passed away in Milan on January 27, 1901. With no heir at the time of his death, Verdi bequeathed his copyrights to the retirement home for aging musicians that he had founded in Milan.

After his beginning in Lucerne and Lyon, mostly in the Mozart and Bel Canto repertoires, Ludovic Tézier has been invited to perform on the greatest international stages. He sang the major roles of the baritone repertoire, under the baton of conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Antonio Pappano, Riccardo Chailly, Gustavo Dudamel and Philippe Jordan.He has performed the role of Amonasro (Aida) at the Verona Arena and the Royal Opera House in London, the title role in Rigoletto at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, the Vienna Staatsoper and the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, the title role of Simon Boccanegra in Zurich, the roles of Renato (Un ballo in maschera) at La Scala in Milan, Barnaba (La Gioconda) and Carlo Gerard (Andrea Chénier) at the Sydney Opera House, Wolfram (Tannhäuser) in Munich and Vienna, Baron Scarpia (Tosca) at the Salzburg Festival, in London and Berlin, Amfortas (Parsifal) and Athanaël (Thaïs) at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.
During the 2024-2025 season, he notably performs as Giorgio Germont in La Traviata, Amfortas in Parsifal, and Wolfram in Tannhäuser at the Staatsoper in Vienna, the title role in Simon Boccanegra at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, and Don Carlo di Vargas in La Forza del Destino at La Scala in Milan and Wotan (L'Or du Rhin) at the Opéra national de Paris.



At the Paris Opera: La Bohème (Schaunard), 1999 ; La Bohème (Marcello), 2001, 2009, 2014 ; Le Nozze di Figaro (Count Almaviva), 2003, 2010 ; The Queen of Spades (Prince Eletski), 2005, 2012 ; Lucia di Lammermoor (Enrico Ashton), 2006, 2013 ; Un ballo in maschera (Renato), 2007, 2009 ; Werther (title-role), 2009 ; Werther (Albert), 2010 ; Don Carlo (Rodrigo, Marquis de Posa), 2010 ; Eugen Onegin (title-role), 2010 ; Carmen (Escamillo), 2012 ; La Traviata (Giorgio Germont), 2014, 2018, 2019, 2024 ; Tosca (Baron Scarpia), 2014, 2021 ; Il Trovatore (Count di Luna), 2016 ; Rigoletto (title-role), 2016, 2021 ; Don Carlos (Rodriguez), 2017 ; Simon Boccanegra (title-role), 2018, 2024 ; Manon (Lescaut), 2020 ; Aida (Amonasro), 2021 ; La Forza del destino (Don Carlo di Vargas), 2022

Tézier.Ludovic 

He.Hui

Born in Cordoba (Argentina), Marcelo Alvarez made his debut in 1995 as Elvino (La Sonnambula) at La Fenice, Venice. Since then he has sung at many international opera houses (the Metropolitan Opera, New York; La Scala, Milan; Covent Garden, London; the Bavarian State Opera, Munich; the Vienna State Opera, the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires and the Verona Arena), where he has sung the Duke of Mantua (Rigoletto) – the role in which he made his French debut at the Capitole de Toulouse in 1997 –, Alfredo (La Traviata), Tonio (La Fille du régiment), the Italian Tenor (Der Rosenkavalier),the title roles of Werther and Faust, Arturo (I Puritani), Carlo (Linda di Chamounix), Fenton (Falstaff), Des Grieux (Manon), Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Nemorino (L’Elisir d’Amore), Gennaro (Lucrezia Borgia), Rodolfo (La Bohème and Luisa Miller), Riccardo (Un Ballo in Maschera), Roméo (Roméo et Juliette), Cavaradossi (Tosca), Manrico (Il Trovatore), Don José (Carmen), Hoffmann (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), and Maurizio (Adriana Lecouvreur).
He made his debut as Radames (Aida) at Covent Garden in April 2010. More recently he sang Enzo (La Gioconda) at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Manrico at La Scala, Milan, the title role of Andrea Chenier at the Metropolitan Opera, Canio (Pagliacci) at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and Cavaradossi at the Bavarian State Opera, Munich. He has recorded several albums for Sony Classical: The Tenor’s Passion, French Opera Arias, Bel Canto, Alvarez Sings Gardel, Duetto (with the tenor Salvatore Licitra), Manon (recorded at the Paris Opera), Tenorissimo, a CD of Verdi opera arias with Decca, and numerous DVDs (including Tosca and Il Trovatore with the Metropolitan Opera, and Adriana Lecouvreur with the Teatro Regio in Turin).

Born in Minsk, Russia, Ekaterina Semenchuk began her career on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre, while she was still a student at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. A finalist in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition, she has appeared in the roles of Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Azucena (Il Trovatore), Eboli (Don Carlo), Amneris (Aida), la Principessa di Bouillon (Adriana Lecouvreur), Didon (Les Troyens), Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana), Marina (Boris Godunov), Laura (La Gioconda), Lioubov (Mazeppa), Marfa (La Khovantchina), Dalila (Samson et Dalila), Giovanna Seymour (Anna Bolena), Preziosilla (La forza del destino) and the title role in Carmen. She performs for the leading operatic venues (Metropolitan Opera New York, Paris Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Salzburg Festival, New National Theatre Tokyo, Teatro alla Scala Milan…). In previous seasons, Ekaterina Semenchuk returned to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in La forza del destino and Macbeth, the ABAO in Bilbao in Cavalleria rusticana, Teatro alla Scala in Macbeth and the Vienna Staatsoper in Anna Bolena. For the 2022/23 season, she portrayed, among other roles, Azucena and Eboli in Florence, Lady Macbeth at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and Teatro alla Scala, Amneris in Rome and Munich, Azucena in Bilbao, Abigaïlle (Nabucco) at the Greek National Opera. On the concert platform, she has sung in Dallapiccola’s The Prisoner with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. During the 2023/24 season, she performs in Il Trovatore in San Francisco and Tel Aviv, Don Carlo and Cavalleria rusticana at Teatro alla Scala, Turandot in Barcelona, Nabucco in Las Palmas and Berlin. Her concert appearances feature Verdi’s Requiem in Vienna, Geneva and Monte-Carlo, the Gurrelieder in Amsterdam, Œdipe roi with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra ant Alexandre Nevski in Rome.

At the Paris Opera: Il Trovatore (Acuzena), 2016, 2018; Les Troyens (Didon), 2019

Semenchuk.Ekaterina (c) 

Born in Parma, Roberto Tagliavini studied singing with baritone Romano Franceschetto. He performs regularly at leading international theaters, with a repertoire ranging from Rossini, Mozart, Bellini and Donizetti to the French and Verdian repertoires. His favorite roles include Alidoro (La Cenerentola), Fernando (La Pie voleuse), Lord Sidney (Le Voyage à Reims), Maometto (Maometto II), Moses (Moses and Pharaoh), the Governor (Count Ory), the Count and Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), Leporello (Don Giovanni) Rodolfo (La Somnambula), Oroveso (Norma), Giorgio (The Puritans), Raimondo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Philippe II (Don Carlo), Attila (title role), Zaccaria (Nabucco), Pagano (I Lombardi), Silva (Ernani) Des Grieux (Manon), Escamillo (Carmen), Frère Laurent (Roméo et Juliette), Lindorf, Miracle, Coppelius and Dapertutto (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Mephistopheles (Faust), as well as Mozart, Donizetti and Verdi Requiems and Rossini's Stabat Mater. He has performed at La Scala, Milan, Opéra national de Paris, Teatro Real, Madrid, Salzburg Festival, Metropolitan Opera, New York, Accademia Nazionale Santa Cecilia, Rome, Royal Opera House, London, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Los Angeles Opera, Mariinsky Theatre St. Petersburg, Amsterdam National Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Zurich Opera, Rossini Opera Festival Pesaro. In the 2024-2025 season, his roles include Banco (Macbeth) and Philippe II at the Vienna Staatsoper, Giorgio Talbot (Maria Stuarda) at Madrid's Teatro Real, Ferrando (Le Trouvère) at London's Royal Opera House, Alidoro at Munich's Bayerische Staatsoper and Zaccaria at the Arena di Verona.At the Opéra national de Paris: Otello (Montano), 2011; Le Trouvère (Ferrando), 2016, 2023; Carmen (Escamillo), 2017, 2019; La Cenerentola (Alidoro), 2017; Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Capitaine Dapertutto, Coppélius, Docteur Miracle, Lindorf), 2016; La Bohème (Colline), 2017; Manon (Le Comte des Grieux), 2020

Tagliavini.Roberto

Lebegue.Marion

Palchykov-Oleksiy

constantin ghircau nb

Member of the Paris Opera ChorusCyrille Lovighi was born in 1975 in Sartène (southern Corsica). He started out his training at Corsica’s Centre d’art polyphonique and in 1995 joined the men’s chorus of Sartène, led by Jean-Paul Poletti. That same year, he appeared at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Jean-Paul Poletti’s Cantata Corsica.He then went on to record a number of CDs (Polyphonies Franciscaines in 1996 on the Audivis label; Fiori di Memoria in 1998, also on the Audivis label; Messa Sulenna in 2000 for Jade Music; Cantata Corsica in 2000 conducted by Cibrian Para with Romania’s Sibiu Philharmonic Orchestra for Naïve; and Goyescas de Granados in 2004 on the Night & Day label).Numerous concerts as a soloist would follow, including Jean-Paul Poletti’s Messa Sulenna with the Sartène Men’s Chorus and the Lyon Opera Orchestra under the direction of John Alldis in March 2001, then Gounod’s Mass and Bizet’s Te Deum in 2003.He was tutored by Yves Sotin at the Regional Conservatory in Angers (where he was unanimously awarded the Gold Medal in 2002) and then in the advanced class at the Regional Conservatory of Saint Maur-des-Fossés (where he was unanimously awarded the Gold Medal in 2004). In 2004, at the Théâtre 13 in Paris, he sang in the opera version of Granados’ Goyescas, an ambitious blend of theatre and opera which would also be presented at the Avignon Festival in July 2004, and at Planete Andalucia in 2005 along with an original creation entitled Flamen Corse which he himself co-authored.In June 2005, he became a full-time member of the Paris Opera Chorus. At the Paris Opera: Il Trovatore (un messo), 2016 ; The Tales of Hoffmann (Nathanaël), 2016, 2023 ; Lohengrin (ein brabantische edel), 2017 ; Simon Boccanegra (un capitano dei balestrieri), 2018 ; Cendrillon (le Doyen de la Faculté), 2022

cyrille lovighi nb

Àlex Ollé was born in Barcelona and is one of the six artistic directors of the prestigious Catalan company La Fura dels Baus, founded in 1979. Some of its many productions include Accions (1983), Suz o Suz (1985), Tier Mon (1988), Noun (1990) and M:T:M (1994). Together with Carlus Padrissa, Àlex Ollé conceived, developed and directed the opening ceremony for the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. He has directed numerous stage productions include Faust 3.0 (1998) a work based on the Goethe tragedy, XXX (2004) inspired by the Marquis de Sade’s Philosophy in the Bedroom (in collaboration with Carlus Padrissa) Kafka’s Metamorfosis and a production of Boris Godunov based around the hostage crisis at the Dubrovka Theatre in Moscow in 2002. In 2010, he directed Samuel Beckett’s First Love at the Greek Festival in Barcelona. He also directed the film project, Fausto 5.0, in collaboration with Carlus Padrissa and Isidro Ortiz (which won the Melies d’Or for best European film in 2003). Àlex Ollé made his opera debut with Carlus Padrissa directing Falla’s Atlántida. He then went on to direct Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien and La Damnation de Faust at the 1999 Salzburg Festival, Joaquin Turina’s D.Q., Don Quijote in Barcelona at the Liceu in Barcelona in 2000, Die Zauberflöte at the RuhrTriennale in 2004 (and then at the Paris Opera), Bluebeard’s Castle / The Diary of One Who Disappeared at the Paris Opera, Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre (in collaboration with Valentina Carrasco) at La Monnaie in Brussels in 2009, and Aufsteig und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (in collaboration with Carlus Padrissa) at the Teatro Real de Madrid in 2010. More recently, he directed Luca Francesconi’s Quartett at Milan’s La Scala, The Prisoner / Erwartung and Tristan und Isolde at the Lyon Opera, Un ballo in maschera at the Sydney Opera and La Monnaie in Brussels, Aida at the Verona Arena, Il Trovatore at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam and the Paris Opera, Der Fliegende Holländer at the Lyon Opera, Madame Butterfly at the Rome Opera, Pelléas et Mélisande in Dresden, Œdipe and Norma at the Royal Opera House in London, La Bohème at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Alceste and The Soldier’s Tale at the Lyon Opera, Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher and La Damoiselle élue at the Frankfurt Opera, Faust at the Teatro Real in Madrid and the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, Mefistofele at the Lyon Opera and the Stuttgart Opera, and Turandot at the New National Theatre in Tokyo. During the 2019-2020 season, he directed new productions of Manon Lescaut at the Frankfurt Opera and Montemezzi’s L’Amore dei tre re at Milan’s La Scala.

Alfons Flores made his professional debuts as a set designer in 1978 with the GAT Company, which he co-founded, in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona. He imagines set designs for the theater, the opera, urban scenography and other major events, and regularly works with artists such as Calixto Bieto, Joan Lluís Bozzo, Carlos Wagner, Guy Joosten, as well as Àlex Ollé and Carlus Padrissa for La Fura dels Baus.&nbsp;His opera designs credits include works for the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, the Teatro Real, Madrid, the English National Opera and Royal Opera House, London, La Scala, Milan, La Monnaie, Brussels, the Paris Opera, and the opera houses in Lyon, Sydney, Frankfurt and Stuttgart.&nbsp;His most striking set designs include Carmen (1999), Un ballo in maschera (2000, 2010, 2013), Don Giovanni and Die Fledermaus (2002), Il Seraglio (2004), Wozzeck (2005 et 2009), La fanciulla del West (2007), Le Grand Macabre (2009), Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and Adriana Lecouvreur (2010), Quartett, Tristan und Isolde and Œdipe (2011), Le Duc d’Albe (2012), Erwartung and Le Prisonnier (2013), Madama Butterfly, Daphné and The Flying Dutchman (2014), L’Elisir d’amore, Pelléas et Mélisande and Il Trovatore (2015), Don Carlos, Norma and La Bohème (2016), Alceste and Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher (2017), Frankenstein, Turandot and Manon Lescaut (2019), Ariane et Barbe-Bleue and Carmen (2021) and Le Nez (2022).&nbsp;His work was awarded by the Barcelonian Critics Theater Award in 1996, 1998 and 2009. In 2000, he won the Irish Times Theater Award for his set designs for the Barbaric Comedies. In 2017, he was nominated at the International Opera Awards in the Best Set Designers category.

Born in Buenos Aires and of Italo-Argentian nationality, José Luis Basso studied piano and orchestral conducting at the University of his hometown. He was appointed Chorus Master at the Teatro Argentino in La Plata where he spent four years preparing operatic and choral works. In 1987, a grant permitted him to pursue his studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. In 1989, he took up the post of Chorus Master at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. That same year, he conducted the chorus of the Buenos Aires Wagner Association and in 1994, he became assistant to the celebrated Chorus master at La Scala Milan, Romano Gandolfi. He was then appointed Chorus Master at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples where he brought to the Opera Chorus a new dynamism, his conducting of Lohengrin and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony attracting considerable acclaim. In 1996, he joined the Maggio Musicale Fiorentine where he prepared the choir for Parsifal conducted by Semyon Bychkov, Turandot with Zubin Mehta and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for which he received the INA-Assitalia Galileo Prize for young conductors 2000. In April 2001, he accompanied the Orchestra and Chorus to Tokyo for the inauguration of the “Italy in Japan 2001” event. He has made a number of recordings for Decca including Turandot, La Bohème, Tosca and Aroldo. As chorus master, he has been invited to the Shanghai Opera, the Mariinski Theatre in Saint Petersburg and the Lyon Opera for Aïda and Carmina Burana. In 2003, he won a Grammy Award with the Chorus of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the soprano Renée Fleming for the album Bel Canto. In the course of the last two decades, he has worked alongside many of the world’s leading conductors: Zubin Mehta, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Georges Prêtre, Antonio Pappano, Seiji Ozawa, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlo Maria Giulini, Myung-Whun Chung, Peter Schreier, Bruno Bartoletti, Rafael Frühbeck De Burgos, Semyon Bychkov, Daniel Oren, Valery Gergiev, Stéphane Denève, Jordi Savall, Fabio Luisi, Marc Piollet, Pinchas Steinberg, Michael Boder, Sebastian Weigle, Gerd Albrecht and Josep Pons. From 2004 to 2014 he was Chorus Master and Artistic Consultant at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelone. Since September 2014 he has been Chorus Master of the Paris Opera.

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