Il trovatore, Italian for "The Troubadour" is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El trovador (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident."

The premiere took place at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on January 19, 1853 where it began a victorious march throughout the operatic world.

Cast:

The Troubadour – Franco Corelli

Leonora – Leontyne Price

Count di Luna – Ettore Bastianini

Azucena – Giulietta Simionato

Vienna State Opera

Herbert von Karajan – conductor

Live - 1962