BLOOD, LUST SPILL OVER IN VERDI'S `IL TROVATORE'.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

An anguished woman picks her way through a pile of blood-splattered corpses. A lithe gypsy with a bare midriff gets gang-raped by soldiers outfitted like leather-bar patrons. Flames lick the ground as weapons clang furiously, and sexual cravings are blurted out with the fervent ecstasy of prayers.

Sounds like the latest Hollywood shoot-'em-up, or maybe an episode of the Jerry Springer show?

Actually, it's L.A. Opera's production of Verdi's ``Il trovatore,'' a piece of musical theater that's as hard to top for relentless melodrama as it is hard to resist on its own lurid emotional terms.

Musically succulent, if dramatically overripe, ``Il trovatore'' revels in its excessive libretto, which tells a story of witchcraft and revenge triggered by a fateful love triangle and enflamed by civil war. In terms of dramatic sumptuousness, the score rivals Verdi's other midcareer masterworks, ``Rigoletto'' and ``La traviata.''

All of which makes ``Il trovatore'' hard to overkill, try as one might, although Stephen Lawless' production certainly doesn't scrimp on sensational effects. The buckets of stage blood may go too far, but they do remind us that the opera's borderline-hysterical sensibility echoes the bracing emotional directness of Verdi's baroque ancestor, Monteverdi.

None of this is lost on conductor Gabriele Ferro, who respects Verdi's grand gestures while never allowing the orchestra to get ahead of the singers.

And what good singers they are. Playing the tragic heroine Leonora, Carol Vaness leaves no doubt that she's among the world's top dramatic sopranos, registering the exact moments of psychological truth that drive her passionate character toward a lusty, defiant comeuppance. Both Vaness' singing and acting confidently express the mature sensuality of a performer in her absolute prime.

In the role of the lovestruck troubadour Manrico, Russian tenor Vladimir Bogachov, with a chest like the Rock of Gibraltar and a voice of similar proportion, shows an impressive ability to rise and fall with the tidelike swells of Verdi's score. Nina Terentieva, after a slurry beginning, settles comfortably into the crowd-pleasing role of the old gypsy Azucena.

But the most pleasant surprise, at least to this reviewer, was Jorma Hynninen playing the Count di Luna, Manrico's rival for Leonora's affections. An elegant, self-possessed singer in previous L.A. appearances, Hynninen here reveals a dashing, virile musical profile as the swaggering count. In the split-screen aria where he's pleading his admiration for the convent-bound Leonora, his awestruck voice conveys both a boyish infatuation and a warrior's ruthless determination to claim his prey.

Alas, the singer's purposefulness isn't echoed in set designer Benoit Dugardyn's ambitious but overbearing amalgam of monumental screens. During scene changes, the singers practically have to run for their lives.

Paul Pyant's lighting design is quite beautiful, bringing out the copper, burgundy and sepia tones in Martin Pakledinaz's historically nonspecific costumes. We can imagine these 15th-century gypsies and Spanish knights as citizens of some futuristic fascist state, caught up in an endless cycle of grisly retribution.

THE FACTS

What: L.A. Opera presents ``Il trovatore.''

Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Music Center of Los Angeles County, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown.

When: 1 p.m. Saturday; 7:30 p.m. May 5, 8 and 13; 1 p.m. May 16.

Tickets: $24 to $135. Call [phone].

Our rating: Two and One Half Stars.