@girlscarpia i Will Indeed because for a while i too was thinking 'now WHY do i find manrico so endearing when most tenors get on my nerves to various extents?' and i THINK i have the answer as to what the appeal about manrico is and what, ideally, a trov production should do with this fellow.
the absolute tldr of the situation is this:
there's obviously way more than that but i thought that was very funny. also for the record i am a di luna enjoyer too, but unlike with manrico (who is like a golden retriever i am putting funny hats on) di luna is more akin to a baby sock i am putting in a wind tunnel just to watch it fly around like crazy.
SO. first we have to answer the question... why DOES leonora like manrico so much? what is her deal?? it isn't mentioned in the libretto but it's important to remember she's betrothed to count di luna to begin with. i think she doesn't really love manrico as like, a person she could marry and settle down with, but rather as an idea. to leonora, manrico symbolizes something outside of family contract and the cycles of repetition that embody the work. leonora ultimately wants the ability to choose over anything else, an option the world of the opera doesn't seem to acknowledge at all.
which is significant because the opera is all about choice and the perpetuation of cycles, largely brought on by family ties.
trovatore is often thought of as a revenge opera. and it very much is about revenge, just as most verdis are, but it's important to remember that verdi usually uses revenge as a language to mean something- it doesn't just exist for its own sake. in rigoletto, for example, characters use revenge to communicate social status and societal conformity. in trovatore, revenge is used to communicate the cycle of violence perpetuated by the characters. there's two distinct chains of this in the entire thing: acuzena's mother -> azucena -> manrico, the other di luna sr -> di luna jr.
manrico is fascinating in that, in some respects, while this chain is still sort of dominating his life (see the civil war situation and the moment where azucena is like YOU GOTTA KILL THE COUNT) he's... sort of rejecting it? or at least coming close to figuring out how to reject it. like for all his density (and maybe because of his density) i get the sense he doesn't go after count di luna because, oh-that's-the-guy-i-have-to-go-kill but rather, oh-that-guy-wants-MY-girlfriend-well-he-isn't-getting-her. which- remember, the dude is seventeen, and also his girlfriend clearly doesn't want this other guy (although his teenage impulsivity makes him almost believe it at times). this choice of action makes perfect sense when you remember he's seventeen. instead of going for the expectations of duty placed on him, he's choosing what makes sense to himself as a person, which is really significant. you see this also both times he spares di luna- it isn't a choice sprung of duty but of impulse, and ultimately impulse in trovatore is something much richer and more human than duty, because the human impulse is to save and protect rather than to exact vengeance. even when his mother is kidnapped, is manrico going after di luna's forces because He Expects They Will Kill Her And Therefore He Has To Exact Revenge? no! he's doing it because he wants to save his mother. and he still sees her as his mother even after he realizes they aren't blood related. the only other time a character expresses the desire to save in this way, rather than to get revenge, is when azucena mentions having attempted to save her mother before the whole baby-burning incident, and even then the fact that azucena failed to save her has sort of embittered her towards that concept since.
(i do think azucena cares about manrico, genuinely, and really does see him as a son; but the things that have happened to her have kind of fucked up her parenting skills so she does manipulate him around a bit. because she sees it as a survival tool. i think di luna sees manipulation as a survival tool too but i could talk about him another day.)
the one thing i keep seeing people dunk on manrico for is how when leonora saves him (for like. a few minutes) by marrying the count (and then McFucking Dying), he's like OMG HUSSY but honestly to be fair if i was wasting away in prison with my mom about to be executed and my mom was going PTSD apeshit and then my girlfriend busts in with the news she just married my freak HAWKFROST KINNIE BROTHER, and also i am like seventeen and already have regularly been exposed to the horrors of war, i also might not react to that in the best and healthiest frame of mind. not fully excusing him for that but i don't think you can write him off for that Forever and have that one moment define him.
ultimately the audience has to see manrico the same way leonora sees him: as potential for escape and choice. not fully realized potential, no; and perhaps potential that has been doomed from the very beginning, but potential. we have to believe in him. we have to believe in the deathless dream, the idea that there is more to this life than these cycles of abuse and trauma that dominate the world. i think it can be done, but it takes acting, and i think he has to look sort of vulnerable- we are putting all that responsibility in a seventeen year old after all, maybe us the audience are too perpetuating these cycles and putting too much on him. he has to be endearing and well-meaning and a wee bit silly. in the grand scheme of things when di luna kills him in the end he's holding an infant, all the potential lost, its umbilical cord strangled around its neck.
something abt him- the juxtaposition of his just really being a kid, and his position as potential sacrificed to the only way this all could have gone- the juxtaposition of his desire for impulse and freedom versus his loyalty and doglike attributes- makes me think of the poem space dog by alan shapiro, which is the best summation of manrico as a character in my mind:
also like. silly dumb football jock who likes music and kinda looks like a golden retriever and is just stupid enough that i as a lesbian feel completely unthreatened by him.
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