Different musical accents: Le Trouvère, Verdi's French revision of Il trovatore receives a rare outing in Wexford

Verdi: Le Trouvère - Wexford Festival Opera (Photo: Pádraig Grant)

Verdi: Le Trouvère; Lydia Grindatto, Eduardo Niave, Giorgi Lomiseli, Kseniia Nikolaieva, Luca Gallo, director: Ben Barnes, conductor: Manuel  Hartinger, Wexford Festival Opera; National Opera House, Wexford
Reviewed 29 October 2025

Very much festival fare, Verdi's French revision to Il Trovatore receives a strong performance from Wexford's international, non-Francophone cast in a staging which catches fire at the end

Verdi in French is an interesting and somewhat underappreciated thread running through his operas. The Paris Opera was important to him, his aim with operas such as Jérusalem, Les vêpres siciliennes, and Don Carlos was to rival Meyerbeer and for whatever reason the Paris Opera thought it important to have a major Italian composer writing operas for them, just as Donizetti had done.

The company had put on Luisa Miller (in French) without Verdi's permission, and Les vêpres siciliennes would fall out of the repertoire for the lack of the right voices, whilst the success of Don Carlos came at a time when Meyerbeerian French Grand Opera was falling out of favour. Yet, Verdi's interactions with La grande boutique, as he called it, are important and his later operas such as Aida and Un ballo un maschera are inconceivable without his experience of and appreciation of French Grand Opera.

But times were a-changing. By the time the Paris Opera wanted to perform Verdi's Otello they planned give it in Italian, something Verdi found incomprehensible. And gradually Meyerbeer's popularity in Paris waned, replaced by the operas of Wagner.

Verdi: Le Trouvère - Lydia Grindatto - Wexford Festival Opera (Photo: Pádraig Grant)

Verdi's Le Trouvère is an interesting way-station in this journey. Il trovatore was translated into French and performed in Brussels, but for Paris Verdi decided to do a new version. This wasn't a thorough-going rewrite like he would do with Macbeth, but a reorientation of the work. Recitative was made to work in French, the orchestrations were adjusted and made more sophisticated, a substantial ballet was added to Act Three and adjustments made to the ending. This version gained currency in French speaking countries, but it never became the prime version, probably because a principal focus of Verdi's adjustments was making the recitatives work in French prosody.

It was this fascinating piece of musical history that the Wexford Festival chose to include in this year's festival. We caught the performance of Verdi's Le Trouvère at the National Opera House on Wednesday 29 October 2025. Manuel Hartinger (replacing Marcus Bosch for the final two performances) conducted the Wexford Festival Orchestra. The production was directed by Ben Barnes with sets by Liam Doona, costumes by Mattie Ulrich, movement by Libby Seward and projections by Arnim Friess. Eduardo Niave was Manrique, Giorgi Lomiseli was Le Comte de Luna, Luca Gallo was Fernand, Lydia Grindatto was Leonore and Kseniia Nikolaieva was Azucena.

Thus an international cast - Mexican, Georgian, Italian, American, Ukrainian - sang in French to a largely English speaking audience. Something Verdi would have regarded as puzzling. Great credit must go to the principals for their energy and commitment in learning one of Verdi's best known operas in an entirely new version. It's bad enough for any tenor to stand on stage and sing 'Di quella pira' but to have to do so with an entirely different text is something else. All had clearly worked hard at the language. Perhaps it was the recitatives that came off best, after all these are where Verdi adjusted the music the most, but most of the singers managed to project a sense of the Francophone nature of this enterprise.

Verdi: Le Trouvère - Eduardo Niave, Kseniia Nikolaieva - Wexford Festival Opera (Photo: Pádraig Grant)

Ben Barnes wisely did not attempt to rationalise the plot, he simple accepted it and presented it. The setting was updated to the 1936 Spanish Civil War which provided a coherent and understandable background to the events thus giving the audience a secure grounding. Liam Doona's sets were simple yet very effective, though I could have wished that Mattie Ullrich's costumes had outfitted Eduardo Niave's Manrique with a little more dashing swagger, made him more gypsy-ish in the way Verdi would have thought of him, but at least it meant that Leonore's mistaken identity in Act One was believable.

The first two acts were efficient, if a bit stiff at times. Barnes and his cast told the story but he had not quite got around the 'stand and sing' problem. But Barnes use of the chorus, with the female nuns, a chorus of black clad women and on-stage monks (in fact in Episcopal purple) gradually moved things away from naturalism. This meant that Act Four, which is hardly naturalistic at all, was the most powerful. The scenes played out with the chorus of black clad women and monk/bishops sat in rows watching both Eduardo Niave and Kseniia Nikolaieva as Manrique and Azucena, and Lydia Grindatto and Giorgi Lomiseli as Leonore and the Comte. It made the opera's dramaturgy of coincidence into something that bit more.

For those unfamiliar with Le Trouvère (most of us, I suspect) the biggest change was in Act Three which opened with Verdi's rather substantial ballet. Lacking an entire ballet troupe to perform as stage gypsies as Verdi intended, Barnes his team gave us videos of the 1936 Civil War along with a trio of dancers, plus the rather game involvement of Eduardo Niave and Lydia Grindatto developing Manrique and Leonore's relationship. It was an effective solution if lacking the theatrical pizazz that the music needs, and Verdi's music here is not negligible.

Verdi: Le Trouvère - Eduardo Niave, Lydia Grindatto - Wexford Festival Opera (Photo: Pádraig Grant)

Eduardo Niave made a strong Manrique. Niave's performance was perhaps a bit rough around the edges, but there is room for that in Manrique's character and Niave is perhaps the closest thing to a genuine spinto tenor that I have heard in the role for a long time. He knew how to be seductive, yet brought real thrill to his big Act Three solo (originally 'Di quella pira'). In Act Four, where the character can sometimes seem a little dim, Niave made him something of a blunt instrument.

Lydia Grindatto brought a nice clarity and evenness of line to her Leonore, bringing out the real sense of melancholy in the character. As Leonore was allowed to develop in Acts Three and Four, Grindatto created some rather touching moments, making the ending rather moving. There was a firmness to her character too, allied to a firmness of tone, which meant that though fragile looking she stood up to Giorgi Lomiselli's Comte admirably.

What I missed, though, was a bit more weight in the voice with that element of temperament, thrilling light and shade (my two finest Leonora's remain Rita Hunter and Rosalind Plowright). But is that required in this version? The original Leonore was quite young when she sang the role and she could go on to be create the role of Princesse Eboli in the original French version of Don Carlos!

Verdi: Le Trouvère - Luca Gallo - Wexford Festival Opera (Photo: Pádraig Grant)

Giorgi Lomiseli's Comte was rather less vicious and more upright than usual. In the earlier scenes he was almost a bit staid, perhaps too proper. I did rather want him to swagger more, after all there is something a little cartoonish about the character. But Lomiseli sang with admirably firmness and vigour, making much of his solos and, finally, in Act Four, getting to swagger in an evil manner.

In many ways, Kseniia Nikolaieva was an admirable Azucena. Half crazed from the outset, always half away with the fairies, Nikolaieva combined this with an admirably rich lower register and a surprisingly mobile upper register so that her passage-work was far neater than is often this case with this character. She also managed to draw you in, this wasn't just a batty old lady. It was unfortunate, therefore, that in the context of this particular version of the opera, her diction left a great deal to be desired.

Luca Gallo made a strong Fernand. His opening narration of the story so far worked surprisingly well though there were times when Gallo's voice seemed to have an element of instability to it. Jade Phoenix made an admirable Ines, as usual with this role if it is done well one regrets there is not more. From the chorus, Conor Prendiville made a similar fine impression as Ruiz, with Philip Kalmanovitch, Vladimir Sima and Conor Cooper in smaller roles.

Taking over from Marcus Bosch for this first time at this performance, German conductor Manuel Hartinger gradually found his form. A few occasional instabilities between pit and stage can be overlooked, and when we got to the ballet music Hartinger and the orchestra played with real relish.

Verdi: Le Trouvère - Giorgi Lomiseli, Luca Gallo, Eduardo Niave, Lydia Grindatto - Wexford Festival Opera (Photo: Pádraig Grant)

Sometimes, operas revived by Wexford go one to have greater currency, returning to the repertoire after a period of neglect. Le Trouvère is never going to be that. The combination of the French text and the extended ballet music mean that few companies will wish to essay it. Yet the opera has an important role to play in Verdi's long love-hate relationship with the Paris Opera. This performance revealed that there were different musical accents to be heard.

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