OPERA REVIEW: Patchwork ‘Trovatore’ is so-so

Better than most any opera, Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” boasts a score that can pump up a listener’s adrenaline and, in the tender moments, tap veins rich in emotional honesty. This despite an absurdly melodramatic plot.

It works because the characters are under stresses unknown in the usual world, creating archtypes in unresolvable conflict. The setting is Medieval Spain, a world of revenge, love triangles, mothers and babies set on fire and macho aggression —- although it’s not so far removed in spirit from, say, today’s TV serials of plane-crash survivors on a Pacific island. We look into the tangled plot for truths on human nature. Verdi offers them in abundance.

Atlanta Opera’s patchwork “Trovatore” opened Saturday at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center. True to Verdi, it manages to surpass the sum of its so-so parts in a production rented from New Orleans Opera.

Before the season opened, the company had hitched this show to the star of Polish contralto Ewa Podles, as the gypsy Azucena. When she canceled some weeks ago, the role was handed to Marianne Cornetti, a mezzo who’s sung it in Atlanta several times before.

Cornetti’s wild, unkempt voice —- often piercing and lovely, too —- gave intensity to the woman who watched her mother burn at the stake and then mistakenly threw her own child into the flame, which led to her raising her enemy’s kid as her own while plotting revenge. The three other principals were less convincing —- making regular Atlanta opera-goers wonder what’s behind these frumpy casting decisions.

As Manrico, the troubadour of the opera’s title, Renzo Zulian was a good tenor with a small stage presence, a little vinegary in tone. He didn’t have the fortitude to sing the famous cabaletta “Di quella pira” twice (as it’s written in the score), but he shot out the climactic, stratospheric high C (which is not in the score) with confidence. His brother by blood and rival in love, Count di Luna, gets some of the best music Verdi ever wrote for baritone. Guido LeBron wasn’t up to it. His delivery was blocky, his tone sandy, his vocal acting awkward.

Angela Brown has a big soprano but doesn’t seem to know how to use it. She floated gorgeous pianissimos, yet couldn’t shape a meaningful character.

In a smaller role, Oren Gradus sang Ferrando, an army officer, with aplomb, a handsome voice and well-shaped phrasing. Walter Huff’s chorus again surpassed expectation, powerfully drilled yet supple.

Bliss Hebert’s one-dimensional stage direction consisted of getting the singers to stand front and center when they sang. The libretto is rich in allusions to darkness and fire, yet Hebert explored nothing.

Credit for holding it together masterfully goes to conductor Edoardo Muller, who breathed with the singers and drew often ravishing sounds from the orchestra.