After various
incidents Manrico falls into the Count's hands, and is condemned to
death. Leonora offers her hand as the price of his release, which the
Count accepts. Manrico refuses liberty on these terms, and Leonora takes
poison to escape the fulfilment of her promise.
The music of 'Il Trovatore' shows a sad falling off from the promise of
'Rigoletto.' Face to face with such a libretto, Verdi probably felt that
refinement and characterisation were equally out of the question, and
fell back on the coarseness of his earlier style. 'Il Trovatore' abounds
with magnificent tunes, but they are slung together with very little
feeling for appropriateness. There is a brutal energy about the work
which has been its salvation, for of the higher qualities, which make a
fitful appearance in 'Rigoletto,' there is hardly a trace.
'La Traviata' (1853) is an operatic version of Dumas's famous play, 'La
Dame aux Camellias.' The sickly tale of the love and death of Marguerite
Gauthier, here known as Violetta, is hardly an ideal subject for a
libretto, and it says much for Verdi's versatility that, after his
excursions into transpontine melodrama, he was able to treat
'drawing-room tragedy' with success. Alfredo Germont loves Violetta, the
courtesan, and establishes himself with her in a villa outside Paris.
There his old father pays Violetta a visit, and, by representing that
the matrimonial prospects of his daughter are injured by Violetta's
connection with Alfredo, induces her to leave him.
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