Opera provides parallels to reality U.S. war concerns echoed in Verdi

You hear that art imitates life, and it’s easy to believe when you see a play or read a book or look at a portrait. But when the art form is opera, which has notably stupid plotlines, it can be hard to find the art-life connection.

We are learning, however, during these times of Code Orange and international apprehension, that art can sneak up on us in unexpected ways – which it did on Saturday when the powerful Russian State Opera performed “Il Trovatore” at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono.

Verdi’s opera, based on a novel by Antonio Garcia Gutierrez, has arguably one of the most inane plots in the whole canon. The gypsy Azucena seeks revenge for her mother, who was burned at the stake many years ago for allegedly casting a spell on the Count’s son. At that time, Azucena, in a fit of fury, supposedly tossed one of the Count’s two sons into the fire and killed him. It was really her own son. When the story opens, Manrico, whom she has raised as her own, has fallen in love with Leonora, who is also pursued by the Count’s other son, now the Count di Luna.

In the end, Leonora kills herself, Manrico is beheaded and Azucena avenges her mother’s death by announcing that Manrico was actually the Count di Luna’s brother.

No one goes to “Il Trovatore” for this convoluted drama. They go for the aria-heavy score, the grand rolling r’s and the melodically luxurious music, all of which were presented with deep and rich skill by the Russian performers. If anyone was crying at the end of this goofy tragedy, it was because the music is beautiful and the singers were muscular and velvety.

Yet there was a moment when some of us in the audience squirmed. It came at the opening of the third act, when Manrico and Count di Luna declare war against one another over Leonora. While waiting for the inevitable, the soldiers play games at their camps. We are happy now, they trill, but soon we will be fighting in battle. Soon there will be blood and death. In a long, impassioned aria, Manrico sings complicated war songs in Italian, but the supertitles above the stage simply announce: “To arms!”

My stomach tightened. It was no longer Verdi. The opera had become America, and it resonated too closely with headlines, with the State of the Union address, with Colin Powell at the United Nations. Suddenly, art was intensifying life.

A man whom I had chatted with at intermission leaned across the empty seat between us and whispered: “I liked this opera until now. This is too close to the drama we are playing out in real life – except the characters onstage are more subtle than the ones in the news.”

“Yes,” I agreed to this virtual stranger. “Now I want to go home and be with my family.”

It was an eerie, fleeting moment of realization and disjunction. Onstage was 15th century Spain. But 21st century worry was in our hearts.

Obviously, if you parse the plot, the similarities fall away. Which they did as the music took over again. The point is, however, that Verdi’s opera sends up a grim warning: Vengeance is a ghastly way to solve problems. It would be overly simplistic to wish that world leaders could step onto a stage and hurl high A’s at each other in a duet. But it’s not such a bad thing to wish that they could learn the lessons of art, that vengeance leads to more vengeance until, as in “Il Trovatore,” all is lost.