In Verdi’s epic opera “La Forza del Destino” (“The Energy of Future”), not one of the characters can escape the inexorable drive towards a tragic ending. The director Mariusz Trelinski, initially a filmmaker by coaching, has recognized one pressure specifically that determines the occasions.
“It’s a story about patricide and the implications,” he mentioned by telephone from Lyon, France, referring to the demise of the Marquis of Calatrava. “The killing of the daddy within the first act determines the destiny of all of the characters. They’re pushed like billiard balls and might solely proceed rolling passively.”
From Feb. 26 to March 29, Mr. Trelinski will mount the Metropolitan Opera’s first new staging of the opera in almost three many years. It’s a co-production with Teatr Wielki – Polish Nationwide Opera in Warsaw, the place Mr. Trelinski serves as artistic director and the place the manufacturing was first seen in January.
On the Met, the music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a solid together with Lise Davidsen in her function debut as a Spanish noblewoman, Donna Leonora de Vargas, and Brian Jagde as her suitor, Don Alvaro, who’s half Peruvian. Igor Golovatenko performs her brother Don Carlo de Vargas — whom Alvaro kills in a duel.
The connection between Mr. Trelinski, 61, and the Met started in 2015 with a double invoice of Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Fortress” and Tchaikovsky’s one-act opera, “Iolanta.” The following yr, the Met’s season opened along with his staging of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.” Each operas emerged in co-production with the Polish Nationwide Opera (“Tristan” was moreover mounted on the Baden-Baden Competition in Germany).
The director’s profession in opera first took off with a 1999 manufacturing of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” that traveled from Warsaw to Washington and Los Angeles, adopted by stops in Valencia, Spain; Tel Aviv; and St. Petersburg, Russia. Recognized for his modern however clear visible language, Mr. Trelinski was in 2018 named finest director on the Worldwide Opera Awards in London.
The next interview has been edited and condensed.
You usually method your characters from a psychoanalytical perspective. Inform us extra about your manufacturing of “La Forza del Destino.”
For me, Calatrava is the image of patriarchy. His assassination is a rejection of the whole lot that has fashioned us: norms, legal guidelines and logos. After that second, the characters turn into slaves of the scenario.
It’s an epic story that unfolds over about 20 years. We start with Calatrava’s party, the place we see the elite of society and the status of navy forces.
After that, battle breaks out. We see that the world is turned upside-down. And within the third half, after so a few years, we see the destroy of civilization. Our heroes are older and drained.
The set is in virtually everlasting movement, as a sort of metaphor for the mad rush of destiny and occasions that you just can’t cease. We can’t cease these wheels from turning till the tip of our lives.
Does religion or God provide any promise of redemption?
These days religion doesn’t encompass the divine judgments we discover in Verdi’s opera, however somewhat human complexes which might be deeply inscribed within the material of life. The result’s damaged lives, kids trying to find a sort of surrogate father, and a collection of false unconscious selections.
That is the rationale Leonora takes refuge in a monastery and Alvaro joins the military. They select a surrogate father as a result of these are patriarchal establishments. We solid the identical singer [Soloman Howard] as Calatrava and the superior of the monastery, Padre Guardiano, to drive residence this precept.
And real love has no likelihood in these societal buildings?
I feel Verdi’s reply is pessimistic. Love initially provides Leonora and Alvaro collectively hope for a distinct life. However patricide separates them for a few years.
After they lastly meet once more, they see in one another those who killed the daddy. They each really feel responsible and can’t stay collectively.
Verdi may be very intelligent right here. The crime leaves behind such a wound that even love can’t actually restore it.
I’ve staged “La Traviata,” the place you even have a domineering father who represents patriarchal society. It was essential for me to return to this opera and perceive this as key to the story.
How has your relationship with the Met and [the general manager] Peter Gelb developed through the years?
I’m very proud of the belief we’ve constructed. And I feel an enormous a part of it’s my filmic method. Individuals right this moment see the world by the eyes of cinema — they communicate by photos.
This can be a key concern as a result of what does it imply to be opera director? An opera director is any individual who can visualize the music.
The music actually reveals you the power of the manufacturing, the tempo of the modifications. And it’s at all times the reality, as a result of there are a number of librettos which might be actually nice, however in, let’s say, 70 % of operas, we’ve genius music, and the libretto is secondary. And if we wish to carry this style to life, we’ve to maintain this in thoughts, as a result of the music is everlasting.
