The Verdi Project: La Forza del Destino

The one where everybody (pretty much) dies.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Bang: Verdi's La Forza del Destino opens with an accidental domestic shooting.
Art by Don Falcone.

Following the premiere of Un Ballo in Maschera, Verdi received a commission from the Imperial Russian Opera in St. Petersburg. For a subject, he came up with Don Alvaro, o La Fuerza del Sino, a Spanish play by the Duke of Rivas. This would premiere in Russia in 1862 as La Forza del Destino ("The Force of Destiny.") . It was a success but performances of the opera in Italy (retitled "Don Alvaro") were met with indifference.

Opera Review: There's Not a Lot of Money in Revenge

New Amsterdam Opera mounts La Forza del Destino.

by Paul J. Pelkonen 

Face-off: Tenor Errin Brooks (in profile) confronts baritone Stephen Gaertner
in La Forza del Destino at New Amsterdam Opera. Photo by Bidrum Vabish.

I have a confession to make. Up until yesterday, I had never heard of the New Amsterdam Opera. And then, on Friday afternoon on Facebook, a colleague and fellow critic mentioned that he was going to see their concert performance of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino ("The Force of Destiny") in the theater at Riverside church that very night. So it was my great pleasure to finds out that conductor Keith Chambers and his company were tackling Verdi’s most challenging opera in a concert performance.

What’s more, they did it with style.

Opera Review: Destination: Nowhere

Washington National Opera takes on La Forza del Destino.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

She wants YOU: Preziosilla (Ketevan Kemoklidze) summons the troops in La Forza del Destino.

Photo by Scott Suchman © 2013 Washington National Opera/The Kennedy Center.

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It is a bold stroke for new Washington National Opera artistic director Francesca Zambello to tackle Giuseppe Verdi's La Forza del Destino in a new production for the composer's bicentennial year. Forza is Verdi's great theatrical experiment, crossing a Spanish revenge tragedy with the sprawling worldview of a Schiller play. The sprawling plot gleefully demands abandonment of Aristotelian unities (and even logic) to tell a story that amounts to an interconnected series of unfortunate events. It is also the opera world's equivalent of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Whispered backstage stories tell of ill fortune--even death--befalling those who dare to sing its three leading roles.

DVD Review: The Red Sword of Courage

La Forza del Destino from Vienna.
by Paul Pelkonen

Pistol packin' Presiozilla (Nadia Kristeva) confronts Don Carlo (Carlos Álvarez)
in Act II of La Forza del Destino. Image © 2008 Vienna State Opera

Giuseppe Verdi's La Forza del Destino remains the most challenging of the composer's operas to produce successfully. With a huge story that sprawls across two countries and many different locations, this attempt to completely destroy the dramatic concept of Aristotelian unity can be a director's nightmare. On this DVD from the Vienna State Opera, (filmed on March 1, 2008) British director David Pountey offers some innovative solutions, drawing inspiration from the spare writing of Cormac McCarthy. and the opera's wartime setting.

The production, designed by Richard Hudson, places most of the action on a unit set, a white rotating plinth with a door at one end. This unit does heavy duty as bed-chamber, tavern, monastery and battlefield as needed. In the last scene, it rotates one last time to become the area before Leonora's cave, with a door at one end the gateway to sanctuary and redemption.  A high scaffolding surrounds the action, providing different acting surfaces for the tavern scene and the battlefields of Act III.

Blood-red swords (indications of the coming fight between Don Alvaro and Don Carlo) are a recurring motif), doubling as crosses. Bodies hang from the scaffold as a grisly chandelier. Images of war and blood are projected on the action, which might have looked better in the theater than on video. The costumes move between Westerns and 20th century military dress, with the old fascist colors of red, white and black predominating.

The Good, The Bad and La Forza

Verdi's opera meets (and inspires) the "spaghetti" Western.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

L.-R.: Il buono (Clint Eastwood), il brutto, (Eli Wallach) il cattivo (Lee Van Cleef)
© 1966 United Artists Pictures.

Last night, very late, I was watching The Good, the Bad and The Ugly, Sergio Leone's masterpiece and the third movie of the trilogy starring Clint Eastwood as "The Man With No Name." About an hour in, just as a random cannonball demolished the second story of the hotel where Tuco (Eli Wallach) had Clint at gunpoint, I started thinking about Verdi--specifically his 1862 opera La Forza del Destino.


Forza (as it's known to opera lovers) is the bastard child among Verdi's mature works, held as either the highest level of genius or a mishappen mess. It is frequently criticized for a total lack of Aristotelian unities, a plot held together by happenstance. A century later, Leone's so-called "spaghetti" Westerns faced the same criticism, mostly from American critics.

A quick recap: Don Alvaro, eloping with Leonora di Vargas when they are confronted by her dad. Alvaro surrenders his weapon. It goes off, killing Vargas. Carlo di Vargas (the son) swears vendetta. Leonora becomes a hermit. Alvaro enlists, only to find Carlo in his regiment. Returning to Spain, Alvaro becomes a priest. Carlo shows up. They duel. Alvaro mortally wounds Carlo. Leonora is killed by a dying Carlo and dies in Alvaro's arms.

Part of what makes Forza remarkable (if bewildering) to newcomers is its reliance on supporting characters in addition to the main trio. Part of that is because Verdi conflated two sources for the libretto: Rivas' play Don Alvaro and Schiller's Wallensteins Lager, which contributed the battle scenes in Act III. This is Verdi's war opera, and he fills its battlefields with memorable figures: the Mayor of Hornachuelos, the gypsy turned military recruiter Preziosilla, the muleteer Trabuco. This vast canvas of humanity serves as comic relief and much-needed contrast to the drama of the three leads.