Opera "The Power of Fate": content, video, interesting facts, history

G. Verdi opera "The Power of Fate"

The opera "The Power of Fate" speaks to the person about the due. Fate itself leads the heroes who shy away from the final setting of all points "above i" to a tragic finale. Sentiments do not win the heroes of honor and rock. The war, the walls of the monastery, the long distance and the mountains - nothing can withstand the fate of fate - the fate of the challenge thrown to the heroes in the first act of the opera. The penetrating performance is framed in a classic opera act, each picture of which sounds different - in an alluring and frightening way of omnipotent rock, breaking everything in its path. The combination of the classic forms of the plot of the opera with the deepest semantic premise expressed by the great music Giuseppe Verdi - this is the real opera, breaking through all the barriers and reaching the limit questions.

Summary of the opera Verdi "Power of fate"and many interesting facts about this work read on our page.

Summary of "Forces of Fate"

The action takes place around 1750, the events unfold in Spain and Italy. The plot of the plot is the contradiction between Marquis Calatrava’s father’s idea of ​​a proper groom for his beloved daughter and love between the daughter of the Marquis Leonora and don Alvaro, whose claims on Leonora’s hand are rejected by the head of the family. The tragic death of Marquis Calatrava, in which there is literally no culprit, ends with a terrible father's curse against her daughter.

The son of Marquis Carlos vows to avenge his father by killing his own sister Leonora and her lover Alvaro. At the same time, lovers are confident in the death of each other and everyone goes their own way.

Leonora, dressed, runs into the monastery, where with the blessing of the abbot settles as a hermit. Alvaro is in the Spanish army, fighting against the Germans in Italy, trying to escape from fate in the war. But the battle on the front line and military exploits do not save the beloved Leonora. The war unfolds against the backdrop of rampant and passion in the camp of the Spanish army, in which the impulse to heroism is combined with a burden to grassroots pleasures. During one of the battles, Alvaro saves the life of Carlos and they swear to eternal fraternity. But when Carlos finds out that the soldier who saved him is Alvaro, then there is a duel between the heroes, after which the action is eventually transferred to the monastery ... then the inexorable step of fate begins.

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Interesting Facts

• The libretto of the opera "The Power of Fate" was written by Francesco Piave, with whom Verdi worked for many years. The plot is based on the work of the Spanish author Angel Saavedra "Don Alvaro, or the Power of Fate".
• The opera was ordered by the Russian Imperial Directorate of Theaters. “The Power of Fate” is Verdi’s first and only opera, written specifically for the Russian theater.
• The premiere of "The Power of Fate" was postponed for one season due to the illness of the famous soprano Emma Lagroix, who was to perform the role of Leonora. And as a result, it was held on November 10, 1862 at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theater of the capital of the Russian Empire.

• After the premiere, Emperor Alexander II summoned Verdi to congratulate him on the success of the opera.
• Giuseppe Verdi together with Antonio Gislanzoni made changes to the opera, including partly changing the ending. The premiere of a new, modified and later most popular version was held on February 27, 1869 in Milan, at the Teatro alla Scala.
• In the Milan version there is a different plot from the original Petersburg one. The introduction was replaced by an overture, in the third act they swapped the third and fourth pictures. The scene of the first duel between Carlos and Alvaro is interrupted by soldiers who were alerted. Finally, the ending was changed, in which Alvaro survives, heeding the admonitions of the abbot of the monastery of Guardiano.
• The Mariinsky Theater retains in its repertoire the original one - the canonical staging of Verdi’s opera The Power of Fate. The opera lasts four hours with two intermissions. At the same time, other theaters in Russia put on a Milan version of the opera.
• Based on the opera, the Italian director shot the film “The Power of Fate”, which premiered in 1950.
• The opera “The Power of Fate” formed the basis of the musical score of the films “Jean de Florette” (1986, France-Italy), “Manon from a source” (1986, France-Italy-Switzerland) and “The Scarlet Letter” (2004, South Korea).
• "The power of fate" was the last joint work of Verdi and Piave. In 1867, Piave suffered an apoplexy, after which he was paralyzed and was unable to continue further work.

Popular arias and numbers from the opera "The Power of Fate"

Leonora's aria "Pace, pace, mio ​​Dio!" - listen

Aria Don Alvaro "La vita e inferno all'infelice" - to listen

Don Carlos's aria "Urna fatale del mio destino" - listen

Overture - listen

History of creation

Initially, the drama "Ruy Blas" by Victor Hugo was to be the basis of the opera, but subsequently the choice of the customer (Directorate of Imperial Theaters of Russia) and Giuseppe Verdi was stopped by the drama "Don Alvaro, or the Power of Fate" by Angel Saavedra. After the premiere of the play in St. Petersburg in 1962, Emperor Alexander II awarded Verdi with the imperial and royal order of St. Stanislav.

After Petersburg, operas were staged in Rome and Madrid in 1863, in New York and in Vienna in 1865, in Buenos Aires in 1866, in London in 1867 and in a new edition in 1869 in Milan.

If in Romeo and Juliet, love tramples death, becomes higher than it, then in Verdi the power of fate tramples everything, becoming over the created world. Neither tragic love, nor the willingness to die, neither military brotherhood, nor kinship, nor religion - nothing can stop the fate of the proper. Such is the power of fate. The presence of two alternative endings of the opera underlines the fundamental foundations "Forces of Fate". In one of the endings, the power of destiny destroys everything that resists it, and in the other, the life that bows before it is preserved.