Matthew Barclay

You've directed Il Trovatore before. What keeps bringing you back to this piece?

Firstly, the music. It has so much of what I love in Verdi: driving rhythms, melodies that sit so powerfully in the voice, great chorus writing, and those extraordinary dramatic monologues for Azucena. It is very satisfying.

But I also keep coming back to the sense of fate in the piece. Fate can sometimes feel like an abstract idea, but in Il Trovatore it is completely active. The past is controlling the present from the first moments of the opera. A curse, a buried crime, inherited trauma, revenge - all of it becomes fuel for the characters. There is a sense from the beginning that events are already moving towards catastrophe.

For me, that makes Il Trovatore irresistible. It is emotionally heightened, musically thrilling, and theatrically extreme in the best possible way.

What is at the heart of your interpretation of this production?

At the heart of the production is the idea that Il Trovatore does not behave like realism. Its story is extreme, irrational and feverish - and that is precisely where its power lies.

Rather than trying to make the opera behave logically, we have embraced its emotional truth. This is a world where the past is never really past, where buried violence continues to act upon the living, and where love, revenge, faith and family memory all collide.

That thinking led us to place the opera inside a ruined Spanish theatre of Lorca's period: a scarred storytelling space remembered after violence, neglect and fire. It is not a literal abandoned building, but a theatrical world where memory and violence still seem present in the walls, and where the story feels condemned to play itself out again.

What should audiences expect from this staging?

Audiences can expect clear, character-driven storytelling, but set within a heightened theatrical world. The production evokes early twentieth-century Spain, with traces of a damaged theatre around the performers: signage, drapes, religious imagery, broken architecture and a central timber platform that suggests a ritual storytelling space.

The staging also makes clear the two worlds in conflict. Di Luna is surrounded by the forces of inherited power: landowners, estate guards and Guardia Civil soldiers, all working to protect the existing order. Against them stand Manrico, Azucena and their community of outsiders: Romani people, landless workers, and the dispossessed. Leonora belongs to the privileged world by birth, but her love for Manrico draws her across that divide.

I hope the audience feels both the scale and the intimacy of the piece. Il Trovatore is huge in emotion, but the theatre places the singers very close to the audience. That gives us the chance to make the work feel visceral, physical and immediate.

What makes this cast special?

Il Trovatore is one of the great tests of operatic singing. You do not take it on unless you have artists capable of meeting its extraordinary vocal and dramatic demands.

Melbourne Opera has assembled a wonderful principal cast in Helena Dix, Rosario La Spina, Sarah Sweeting and Chris Hillier. These are roles that ask singers to perform at the extremes of vocal power, stamina and emotional intensity. What is exciting is not only the quality of the voices, but the skills and generosity these artists bring into the rehearsal room.

A new production asks performers to take risks, to find fresh dramatic detail, and to put their talent in service of a shared vision. I feel very fortunate to be working with this cast, chorus and creative team.

If you had to describe this production in one sentence, what would you say?

A ruined Spanish theatre becomes the haunted space where Verdi's Il Trovatore plays out again - a story of love, power and revenge that shows how the past can destroy its own blood.