Act III: 'La vita è inferno...' (Alvaro) (La forza del destino)

Verdi wrote La forza del destino for the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in Saint Petersburg, where it was first given on 10 November 1862, to a libretto Piave drew from the Duke of Rivas's Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino, with one scene borrowed from Schiller. Dissatisfied, Verdi revised it for La Scala in 1869: Ghislanzoni supplied new text, a full overture replaced the short prelude, and Alvaro was left alive at the end instead of throwing himself from a cliff. That 1869 score is the one performed today — war, pilgrimage and coincidence, bound by a single recurring motif.