Avatares verdianos de un drama romántico (Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino y las dos versiones de la Forza del Destino)

Abstract

This article is devoted to a comparative analysis of Duke of Rivas’ romantic play Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino (1835) and the two versions of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La forza del destino (1862, 1869). We intend to prove that the second version of Verdi’s masterpiece turns Rivas’ imperfect and incoherent play, whose catastrophic ending postulates cosmic injustice and a non christian and fatalistic conception of life, into an accomplished example of christian drama, whose outcome is ruled by the ideas of Providence and redeeming suffering. In such a dramatic and ideological solution, surprising indeed in the agnostic Verdi, we see the influence of catholic writer Alessandro Manzoni and his novel Il Promessi Sposi, strongly admirated and praised by the composer.