Act I, Scene 1, at night, in the Aljafería palace in Zaragoza. While the Count di Luna prowls beneath Leonora’s windows, jealous of an unknown troubadour, his captain Ferrando keeps the guard awake by telling an old story. Years ago, a gypsy woman was accused of bewitching the old count’s younger son, who had fallen ill, and she was burnt alive as a witch although she swore she was innocent. Her daughter, Azucena, abducted the child, and the burnt bones of a baby were found in the ashes of the pyre. The father never believed his son was dead and, on his deathbed, charged his firstborn, the present count, with hunting down the gypsy. That charge is his inheritance. In Il trovatore (Giuseppe Verdi, 1853, with a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano after Antonio García Gutiérrez’s El trovador), set during the Aragonese civil war of the early fifteenth century, the count loves Leonora, lady-in-waiting to the princess, but she loves Manrico, a troubadour who fights for the rebel side and believes himself to be Azucena’s son. The count tries to abduct Leonora from the convent where she has taken refuge; Manrico rescues her. The count’s troops capture Azucena, whom Ferrando recognizes as the daughter of the burnt woman, and condemn her to the stake. Manrico comes to save her and is captured too. Leonora offers herself to the count in exchange for Manrico’s freedom, and takes poison before keeping her promise. The count orders Manrico’s execution. When it is all over, Azucena reveals the truth to him: that day, in her delirium, she threw her own son into the fire. Manrico was the count’s brother.
// The theoryWhen two norms collide
In Culture Conflict and Crime (1938), Thorsten Sellin argued that every social group has its own conduct norms, and that crime often arises when those norms collide. Primary conflict occurs between different cultures, for example between a minority and the society around it; secondary conflict, within a single society divided into groups with different values. In that clash, the group with more power turns its norms into law, and the behavior of the other group becomes crime. The criminalization of a minority does not always respond to what it does, but to what it represents.
The original crime
The whole tragedy of Il trovatore springs from an act of cultural persecution: an old gypsy woman burned alive because she was near the cradle of a child who later fell ill. For the old count, the suspicion of witchcraft is enough, because the gypsy belongs to a group to which his society attributes dark powers. Sellin would describe that episode as the core of culture conflict: a dominant group that interprets a minority’s behavior according to its own fears and punishes it with its own law. Azucena’s revenge and the deaths that follow are the consequence of that first injustice.
// The subjectA nobleman who inherits persecution
The Count di Luna took no part in burning the old woman, but he inherits his father’s gaze. He pursues the gypsy Azucena with the same conviction, and when he captures her he condemns her to the same pyre. His rivalry with Manrico mixes love, war and class contempt: Manrico is a rebel, a troubadour and the son of a gypsy, and does not deserve Leonora. Verdi gives him one of the most beautiful arias in the opera, which makes him human, but his actions are those of a man who uses his power to take possession of a woman and eliminate his rival.
The following acts show how the count manages that inheritance. In Act II, before the convent, he sings “Il balen del suo sorriso”, an aria about the light of Leonora’s smile, and then tries to carry her off by force before she takes the veil. In Act III, in his camp before the fortress of Castellor, his men bring him a gypsy woman caught near the camp. Ferrando recognizes her, she cries out for her son Manrico, and the count realizes he holds the perfect bait: he orders a pyre built before the walls to burn her in sight of his enemy. This time the charge is his brother’s death, which no one has proved, and the sentence also serves the war. In Act IV, when Leonora dies of poison rather than give herself to him, the count hears her last words and has Manrico executed on the spot. The fire his father lit against a gypsy woman he finishes against his own blood.
Count di Luna
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// The crackAn opera that reproduces the stigma
The culture conflict reading runs into a hard limit: the opera itself reproduces the stigma it denounces. Azucena is a terrible, vengeful figure who throws her own son into the fire in a delirium, and the gypsies appear as a wandering, mysterious and dangerous people. The work shows the persecution, but does not fully question it.
Moreover, Sellin’s theory explains the first crime, the burning of the old woman, well, but the later ones less so. The rivalry between the count and Manrico, the attempted abduction of Leonora and the final execution respond to civil war, jealousy and revenge, not to a clash of cultural norms.
The persecution of the Roma in Spain
The story García Gutiérrez invented has a real basis. In Spain, the Roma were the target of persecutory laws from the Catholic Monarchs’ decree of 1499, which required them to settle or leave the kingdom. In 1749, the so-called Great Round-up ordered the arrest of thousands of Roma in a single day, with the aim of separating them by sex and ending them as a people. That history of criminalizing a group for what it is, not for what it does, is the context Sellin helps us understand.
Three key ideas
- Sellin’s culture conflict theory (1938) explains crime as the clash between the norms of different groups, in which the dominant group turns its own into law.
- In Il trovatore, the burning of a gypsy accused of witchcraft sets off a chain of revenge that ends with the Count di Luna executing Manrico, the brother who was stolen from him.
- The crack: the opera reproduces the stigma against the Roma that it denounces, and the theory explains the first crime but not the jealousy and war that drive the count.
Sources · further reading
- Sellin, T. (1938). Culture Conflict and Crime. Social Science Research Council.
- Gómez Alfaro, A. (1993). La Gran Redada de Gitanos. Presencia Gitana.
- Fraser, A. (1992). The Gypsies. Blackwell.
- García Gutiérrez, A. (1836). El trovador. Madrid.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
Who is Conde de Luna?
Conde de Luna is a villain from Opera, analysed on KRIMINIS through the lens of criminology. He ordered the troubadour beheaded at dawn.
Why does Count di Luna become a villain?
Sellin’s culture conflict begins here with a gypsy woman burnt as a witch, and the Count di Luna, of Il trovatore, inherits his father’s persecution. In the end his own brother pays for it.
Which criminological theory explains Conde de Luna?
Conde de Luna's case is analysed through Culture conflict. Thorsten Sellin’s culture conflict theory (1938) explains crime as the clash between the conduct norms of different groups: what is custom for one is crime for another, and the dominant group turns its norms into law. The Count di Luna, of Il trovatore (Giuseppe Verdi, 1853, after Antonio García Gutiérrez’s 1836 play), pursues in fifteenth-century Aragon the troubadour Manrico, a rebel raised by the gypsy Azucena. Years before, the old count had Azucena’s mother burned, accused of bewitching one of his sons, and Azucena abducted the child in revenge. The Count di Luna captures the gypsy and executes Manrico, who was his stolen brother.
