Verdi’s Jewish Opera Grandly Staged at the Metropolitan

Nabucco is widely seen as a political opera. But while Verdi’s nationalist operas have mostly dropped out of the repertory of major venues, Nabucco is still performed widely, in part because it has better music, and also because it is not so much a nationalist opera as a religious one. With the arguable exception of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Nabucco is the most Jewish of operas, with a deeply sympathetic portrayal of the First Exile. David P. Goldman, Tablet

Baritone George Gagnidze makes his Met role debut as the imperious king Nabucco, alongside soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska reprising her thrilling turn as his vengeful daughter Abigaille. Mezzo-soprano Maria Barakova and tenor SeokJong Baek, in his company debut, are Fenena and Ismaele, whose love transcends politics, and bass Dmitry Belosselskiy repeats his celebrated portrayal of the high priest Zaccaria. Daniele Callegari conducts Verdi’s exhilarating early masterpiece, which features the ultimate showcase for the great Met Chorus, the moving “Va, pensiero.” Al Metropolitan fino al prossimo 26 gennaio.

Verdi e Shakespeare

Interessante il lungo articolo di Garry Wills, professore di storia alla Northwestern University, sulla passione che Verdi nutriva per Shakespeare. "Verdi could not read English—though his wife, who helped him, could—but he carefully compared the latest and best recent translations (some made by his friends or acquaintances). He had not been to England when he composed Macbeth, but he had acquired, from friends like Andrea Maffei, solid information on the way Macbeth was staged in the country of its origin. For Macbeth, he cut the play down to opera size himself, creating a prose synopsis for his librettist, Francesco Maria Piave, to versify. He was dissatisfied with Piave's work, correcting it, adding suggestions, above all trimming it. He wanted no wasted words. He insisted to Piave, Poche parole! Poche parole! Poche parole! (Few words! Few words! Few words!) Finally, in his exasperation with Piave, he had his scholar friend Andrea Maffei, an expert translator, correct portions of the libretto". nyrb. Nella foto: Željko Lučić nella parte di Macbeth nella produzione del Macbeth di Verdi di Peter Stein, Salisburgo, 2011.