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Description
Giuseppe Verdi:
IL TROVATORE
Opera Premiere
Thursday, July 23, 2026, 8:00 PM
(rain date: July 24)
Margaret Island Open-Air Stage
The opera of passionate hatred and love!
Verdi’s Nabucco, directed by Teodóra Bán, was a major audience success in our 2025 season. The grand opera premiere of the 2026 summer season will be another monumental Verdi work: Il trovatore. After its premiere, the opera was staged across Europe. In Naples alone, it was performed 190 times in six different theaters, and it premiered in Hungary on October 31, 1854.
At the heart of the work are themes of rebellion against oppression, revenge, passionate hatred, love, and betrayal. While Nabucco reflects the wrath directed against foreign conquerors during the time of its composition, Il trovatore builds on motifs of revolt, vengeance, fiery emotions, love, and treachery. Verdi’s imagination was captured by the romantic medieval setting and the unique atmosphere of gypsy camps. From this emerged the story of the mysterious troubadour whose serenade ignites Leonora’s heart.
The title role on Margaret Island will be performed by dramatic tenor Yusif Eyvazov. Yusif is a regular performer at the world’s most prestigious opera houses, including La Scala in Milan, the Vienna State Opera, Teatro Real in Madrid, the Berlin State Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, the Paris National Opera, and the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. He has also recorded several albums with Deutsche Grammophon, including a complete recording of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, captured at the Salzburg Festival.
The plot of Il trovatore unfolds in Spain in the 1410s, during the civil war started by the Count of Urgel against King Ferdinand I of Aragon, nephew of the late King Martin, who was elected rather than born to the throne. In Zaragoza, the heart of the Kingdom of Aragon, nestled on the southern slopes of the Pyrenees, Count Luna, a royal loyalist, resides in the Aljafería Palace, while Leonora, lady-in-waiting to the queen, lives in the nearby Sargasto Palace. Manrico, originally from the Biscay mountains, fights on the side of the Count of Urgel. Thus, Count Luna and Manrico are not only rivals in love, but also political adversaries.
The central figure of the drama is Azucena, the gypsy woman, whose silence weaves an increasingly tangled web, passively driving the love triangle toward tragedy. Her inner voice, which wishes to do no harm does battle with the traditions that demand blood vengeance.
