Edited by David Lawton (2017)
NR 141771
Le trouvère, Verdi’s adaptation for the French stage of his very successful Italian opera Il trovatore, premiered at the Théâtre de l’Opéra in Paris on 12 January, 1857. As has been well documented in the scholarly literature, Verdi’s decision to prepare this new French version grew out of a dispute over author’s rights with Torribo Calzado, the manager of the Théâtre Italien in Paris, who had performed La traviata there from pirated materials. After its highly successful Paris premiere, Le trouvère circulated widely on the French circuit, and achieved a success comparable to that of Il trovatore on the Italian circuit.
Verdi retouched 8 of the original 14 numbers of Il trovatore, and added a full length ballet in Act III. Most of the changes do not affect the substance of the work: rather, they are intended to adapt certain features—particularly the orchestral accompaniments—to Parisian taste. The long rehearsal process led to numerous modifications of details. The new French text necessitated many changes in the vocal line—mainly in the rhythm but sometimes also in the actual pitches.
The central problem in preparing a critical edition of Le trouvère is that no autograph manuscripts for the ballet or the revised numbers have survived. Nevertheless, among the performance materials housed at the Bibliothèque de l’Opéra, there are manuscripts that have annotations in Verdi’s hand. These include the rôle-books for Mme Lauters (Léonore) and M. Bonnehée (Le Comte), the Danse Répetiteur, the Partition de Chant and the full orchestral score. Since much of the Italian score was not changed when it was revised for Paris, the autograph score of Il trovatore remains a source of fundamental importance for the critical edition of Le trouvère.
In the absence of Verdi’s autograph score for the divertissement and the revised numbers of Le trouvère, the evaluation of the non-autograph manuscript scores, their chronology, and their relationship to the autograph score of Il trovatore were essential preliminary steps. It was important to establish which of the surviving sources were connected with the 1857 premiere of the opera, in which Verdi was actively involved. Of the two manuscript scores in Paris, one is the older and most reliable source. It is a conducting score and is an accurate copy that is relatively free of the abbreviated notation characteristic of Verdi’s autograph scores. However, because its current state reflects the last production for which it was used (Opéra, 1923), there are some lacunae in the manuscript.
Although Le trouvère was staged a great deal during the 19th century, both at the Opéra and at other theatres on the French circuit, the work was always performed from manuscript materials (except for the piano-vocal score published by Escudier and choral and orchestral parts printed by Ricordi in 1883). Only three full orchestral scores have survived, and they are all manuscripts. The present critical edition is the first publication of the full orchestral score; a new piano-vocal score, derived from the orchestral score, and orchestral parts, are available on rental from Casa Ricordi.