La Forza del destino is now playing at Opera National de Paris. Performances run through 30 December.
As the curtain rises, Don Alvaro makes ready to flee with Leonora. Alas, the two lovers are surprised by the young woman’s father. Alvaro throws his pistols to the ground but one of them goes off and kills the father: destiny is pitiless and laughs at men’s fates.
A grand fresco full of plot twists in which the father’s curse overshadows all, La Forza del destino, like Rigoletto and Il Trovatore, is also a work of its time. In 1861, Verdi agreed to become a parliamentary deputy in order to pursue his political ideals. However, the Risorgimento was flagging and the composer was assailed by doubts.
A certain dark melancholy suffuses the score, where the motif of destiny recurs throughout alongside the idea of redemption. In Jean‑Claude Auvray’s production, opera becomes a place where dreams shatter once morest the wall of reality whilst there emerges a fragile yet intoxicatingly beautiful song of hope.
