Verdi’s Il Trovatore is always pretty grim.  It’s hard to lighten up an opera with multiple executions, suicide and babies being barbecued.  David Bösch in his Covent Garden production (remounted and recorded in 2017 with Julia Burbach directing), probably wisely, doesn’t even try.  This is as grim as Grimsby on a wet Sunday in February with extra gratuitous violence.  The setting is some roughly contemporary civil war.  The Conte di Luna’s troops are a scruffy lot but they have a pretty cool looking tank.  The gypsies are a bit gayer though Azucena’s caravan is disturbingly plastered with baby dolls reflecting her obsession.  It’s all quite dark.  Really only Leonora (and her maid) stand out as they wear white in contrast to the greys of pretty much everyone else.  The story is told straightforwardly enough and the sets and costumes do provide some kind of moral differentiation between the two camps with Leonora sort of standing above and apart from the violence.

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