Verdi’s cursed opera in Palma

Following the recent performance of Puccini’s ‘Il trittico’, the opera programme for the 2023-2024 at the Teatre Principal in Palma has three other productions - all next year.

Humperdinck’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and Gounod’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ will be preceded by Giuseppe Verdi’s ‘La Forza del destino’, known in English as either The Force of Destiny or The Power of Fate.

Based on the Spanish drama ‘Don Álvaro’, the opera premiered in Saint Petersburg in October 1862. Subsequently revised, it is the version at Milan’s La Scala in 1869 which is today the most commonly performed.

For the performance in Palma, Mallorcan bass-baritone Sebastià Serra has been confirmed for the role of one of the protagonists, Il Marchese de Calatrava (the Marquess of Calatrava), who is shot at the end of the first act but utters a curse on his daughter, Leonora, before he dies.

The story is then essentially about the two lovers, Leonora and Álvaro. Superstition has it that ‘La Forza del destino’ is cursed. Pavarotti refused to ever perform it. But it is only superstition ... .