The first scene of Act ii of Verdi’s La forza del destino is set in a tavern in the Andalusian village of Hornachuelos; the time is the mid-eighteenth century. Don Carlo di Vargas (baritone) has been searching for his sister Leonora (soprano) and her lover Don Alvaro (tenor), who have disappeared after Alvaro accidentally killed Leonora and Carlo’s father in Act i (about eighteen months have passed between Act i and Act ii). But the two lovers have been separated, and Leonora, who has disguised herself in men’s clothing, also arrives at the tavern. She recognises her brother, who pretends to be a law student at Salamanca called Pereda, but is not recognised by him. The gypsy woman Preziosilla encourages the men who are dining at the tavern to join the war currently being fought in Italy. Pilgrims are heard chanting in the distance, and everybody on stage joins their prayer. Then Don Carlo tells everyone how he helped his friend Vargas (i.e. himself) in his search for the man who murdered his father and seduced his sister: the murderer has fled to America, and ‘Pereda’ is on his way back to Salamanca to finish his studies.

In the autograph score of the opera the entire scene – sixty-six pages in the current Ricordi piano–vocal score – is simply called ‘Scena osteria’, constituting one of Verdi’s longest musical numbers to date. In 1869, when Verdi revised La forza del destino (premiered in St Petersburg in 1862) for a production at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the only major change he made to this number was the transposition of Preziosilla’s canzone ‘Al suon del tamburo’ from the original B flat major to B major, probably in order to suit better the vocal powersof Ida Benza, the Milan Preziosilla. Given the numerous and often radical revisions of other parts of the score, especially the military encampment scene that closes Act iii, it seems logical to conclude that he must have been broadly satisfied with this ‘Scena osteria’, including its rather peculiar ending.