Verdi - Nabucco (Geneva, 2023)

Verdi - Nabucco

Grand Théâtre de Genève, 2023

Antonino Fogliani, Christiane Jatahy, Nicola Alaimo, Saioa Hernández, Riccardo Zanellato, Davide Giusti, Ena Pongrac, Giulia Bolcato, Omar Mancini, William Meinert

OperaVision - 17th June 2023

At my last count I have written reviews of 100 Verdi opera productions, probably more than necessary on La Traviata, Rigoletto and Aida, although I seem to see Don Carlos, Simon Boccanegra, Otello and Macbeth featuring more regularly now. Nabucco I've covered only once in the last 15 years (at Vienna in 2015), but it doesn't seem to be one quite as often performed these days. Which is surprising in some ways but - having watched this Geneva production - not surprising in others. It's surprising since it is 'pure opera' (which is a bit of a vague claim, but I'll try to clarify that), but also unsurprising in the way that it's hard to do anything with it that will allow it to connect with a modern opera audience - if that's not a contradiction with the assertion that it is pure opera. In any case, it strikes me that at least as far as the Brazilian filmmaker and director Christiane Jatahy handles it, the Geneva production of Nabucco comes across as little more than abstract 'pure opera'.

By pure opera, I of course mean classic Italian opera and Verdi is perhaps the greatest proponent of that form of opera, although claims could also be made for Rossini leading the way before him and Puccini taking it further after him. And in those early works at least, it's pure opera in as far as adherence to the conventions of the Italian opera style, where the tailoring of a familiar arrangement of numbers, arias, cabalettas, choruses were arguably more important - or at least as important - as any narrative coherence, message or personal style. Verdi of course had plenty of substance to say and frequently ran into trouble with the censors for his outspoken attacks on religion, politics and his stance on Italian independence, but the emphasis tends to sit more on the individual personal and familial conflicts within the greater scheme of the abuse of power. You can see this in Aida, La Forza del destino, Simon Boccanegra, I due Foscari and many others. It can also be seen in the shift of emphasis in his Shakespearean adaptations, and even the ambitious Don Carlos doesn't quite overcome those challenges of striking the right balance.

It's a format nonetheless that clearly inspired Verdi and gave the composer great material to work with, even when the plot development, weak libretti and inadequate character development forced to meet the conventions of grand opera numbers and expectations of a conservative opera audience didn't allow for any deep exploration of the human experience. Only latterly in his career would Verdi find strong librettists like Arrigo Boito and be presented with material that could measure up to the quality of his musical talent. Nabucco belongs to the power and passion of his early works, never quite satisfying, never really giving the audience much of a challenge. There is certainly plenty for the composer to get his teeth into however in a charged dramatic situation, but it's a lot of sound and fury, signifying not very much. 'Va, pensiero' notwithstanding.

Having failed to find any enthusiasm to put myself through a streamed viewing of Aida at the Bavarian State Opera, abandoning it after 'Celeste Aida' (never a favourite Verdi opera), I thought it might be better watching a Verdi opera I was less familiar with. The Geneva production of Nabucco up there on the OperaVision site seemed ideal, and even though I've only watched the opera once in the last 15 years, I was sure I could follow it without needing to read the synopsis. It's an early Verdi opera after all - written in 1841, only his third opera - and surely not too difficult to follow, particularly as it looked like this production has no intention of being restricted to a Biblical setting. I was however a little bit lost in the opening scenes, but fully enjoying the performance and presentation for the impact alone. This is what I consider to be pure Verdi opera; a lot of highly charged scenes with expression of high romantic melodrama in a setting of religious, political or national conflict. Without really knowing what is at stake, it's enough just to see how the main characters express their struggle to put across the power of the work.

And in some respects that is largely all that the Geneva production does. Avoiding the Biblical Nebuchadnezzar period, it's the kind of production style I personally enjoy; an abstract and timeless spectacle, finding a fairly unique way of presenting a work, not trying too hard to make a statement. It's early Verdi on fire, it's Nabucco and that's enough, a blockbuster writ large for the big screen. The stage production makes use of a camera for live projection of close-ups, a mirror hangs over the proceedings and a shallow pool of water with spotlights permit filmed footage and other special effects. A large cloth robe is draped over the stage that Abigaille will wrap around her in dramatic and regal fashion. The charged situation spills over from the stage, with chorus members arising out of the audience in the stalls, enveloping the theatre in the full Verdi.

All this is very impressively supported by musical direction of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Antonino Fogliani, who captures the straightforward force of the work, but also its dramatic precision. This is an opera and a production to just give yourself over to, which is often what you have to do with Verdi and the rewards can be great. The musical qualities however shouldn't be underestimated, nor the challenges of the singing roles. When you have the right kind of singers who have strength, force and precision, as well as the ability to emotionally engage with these highly charged arias and scenes, the impact is like nothing else. Nabucco offers many such opportunities, and the are well taken. For the Verdian who has tired of the overplayed main three (La Traviata, Aida, Rigoletto), Nabucco (and Macbeth) offer new life for those who just want to experience the classicism of Italian opera in its purest form.

Maybe it's just lazy to say that the production offers nothing more than this; there has clearly been great effort put into every element, from the set design to the orchestration, casting and the singing. After watching the stream, I went back and checked the synopsis, read some background information, listened to the director's presentation and reconsidered the production in that light, but it didn't enlighten or improve my opinion of what I had seen. I enjoyed this purely as a - for me - not-so-familiar Verdi opera given a thoroughly skilled and entertaining performance and presentation. The nature of the modern production in everyday dress allows others to see contemporary application of the themes brought out by this work if they so want to, but you are not obliged to do so.

That's the nature of opera. It's not just notes on a page, it only lives in the moment it is performed, and a modern audience with greater familiarity of the world of opera and history in the following almost 200 years will have an entirely different response to a work like Nabucco than the audience who first saw it performed. Each individual will also respond to an opera differently, speaking to them in different ways. In fact, often it's more successful when a production allows room for personal identification and connection, rather than imposing a strict idea or over-worked concept. Verdi's full-blooded musical scores for the subjects in his early operas often go for the heart rather than for the head, but dealing with basic human emotions and struggles, they are just as capable of touching as deeply with as the grander concepts and philosophical pursuits in Wagner's operas.

Rather than impose a reading beyond the idea of an oppressed people in the abstract, Christiane Jatahy's cinematic techniques served at least to highlight the impassioned performances of the cast. I particularly liked the character that Saioa Hernández brought to Abigaille, with a performance that could pin you to your seat, fully living up to the challenging role Verdi had composed for Giuseppina Strepponi. Having seen her singing impressively in the otherwise weak Verdi opera Attila, this comes as no surprise. There were solid performances for the reliable Italian Verdian singers Nicola Alaimo as Nabucco and Riccardo Zanellato as Zaccaria. Ena Pongrac made a fine impression as Fenena, and Davide Giusti also delivered with the requisite charged singing performance. An excellent cast all-round and, of course, the all-important chorus impressed with their contribution to this work. 

It was conducted well by Antonino Fogliani, who also composed a brief closing intermezzo before a final repeat acapella version of 'Va, pensiero' from the chorus placed all around the Grand Théâtre de Genève. Perhaps they felt the opera lacked the right kind of impact at the finale - and certainly the final act doesn't measure up to the first half of Nabucco - but if you want the audience to leave the with a lasting impression of what it means to live oppressed but unbowed, with Verdi's stirring composition ringing in your head, this serves very well indeed.

External links: Grand Théâtre de Genève, OperaVision

Verdi - Il Trovatore (Salzburg 2014 - Webcast)

Giuseppe Verdi - Il Trovatore

Salzburger Festspiele, 2014

Daniele Gatti, Alvis Hermanis, Anna Netrebko, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Diana Haller, Francesco Meli, Plácido Domingo, Riccardo Zanellato, Gerard Schneider, Miloš Bulajić, Raimundas Juzuitis

Medici, ARTE Concert - August 2014

The Di Luna family seem to have fallen on hard times in the 2014 Salzburg Festival production of Verdi's Il Trovatore. Like many other once aristocratic families with large expensive estates to manage, their home is now open as a museum to the general public as a means of paying for its upkeep. This one in particular has some colourful history attached to it. The eldest son, Ferrando, takes on the role of tour guide and tells the latest group of tourists all about how the fortunes of the Di Luna family went into decline following the death of the youngest son, consumed in the same fire where they burnt an old witch accused of putting a curse on him.

This isn't a bad way to present the 15th century melodrama of Il Trovatore. The opera opens with a tale that relates the background of the story, and unquestionably, it's this historical event that is to continue to have grave repercussions for the Di Luna family. It's perhaps not a device that can be sustained for the whole of the work, so Latvian director Alvis Hermanis - who brought Alphonse Mucha paintings spectacularly to life in La Monnaie's Jenůfa last year - works on a similar 'Night at the Museum' idea here, where the paintings in the galleries come to life and recreate the past. It's not an ideal arrangement, requiring the cast to make some awkward on-stage quick changes, but the crimson colour scheme looks fabulous and there could even be come conceptual merit to the enterprise.

Perhaps it's the troubadour reference, but this intentions of this production of Il Trovatore reminded me of the concept of George Benjamin's and Martin Crimp's Written on Skin. It's about looking back at history and bringing the past back to life through art, through painting, through the power of storytelling. And, of course, through the power of opera as well. It's not a grand concept by any means, but Alvis Hermanis manages to apply it to Il Trovatore without interfering too much with the primary purpose of the opera to entertain and inspire passions through storytelling, since that is also essentially the primary purpose of the troubadour.

It's not uncommon to apply such a distancing framing device to operas (mostly bel canto works) where the plot is a little over-heated or lacking in credibility. Although the plot of Il Trovatore can be expressed in such terms, it doesn't necessarily need a modern framing device because Verdi's score is powerful enough to carry you along through the roaring melodrama. Aside from the abundance of memorable melodies, arias and choruses, the music also succeeds in how it is able to give full dramatic expression to the heightened sentiments of the characters without adding to the hysteria.

Those arrangements seemed to be slightly restrained here as conducted by Daniele Gatti to the point that where very familiar pieces aren't immediately recognisable. I would be reluctant to judge it on the highly compressed live sound-mix for an internet stream, but there does seem to be some holding back from the traditional playing of Verdi at full-tilt, withholding in the process some of the pleasures that come with it in this particular work. On the other hand, it does reveal some of the musicality and beauty of Verdi's writing. Some of the choices however may be determined by the staging - there are no hammers on anvils in the art gallery of this production, for example - but in scenes such as the conclusion where the impact is all-important, it hits home powerfully.

In terms of the singing or the playing of the characters however there was little such compromise. The only real constraint on some of the performers was the necessity of changing costumes in their transformation from museum attendants in modern dress to historical figures in period costume, while continuing to keep singing at the same time. Anna Netrebko seemed to be half in and half out of a dress in some scenes (not that I'm complaining), but it scarcely mattered as far as her performance is concerned. She might not be the ideal Leonora, but she certainly has the ability, the voice and the charisma to carry it off. She's deservedly the star attraction here and remains riveting to watch, never giving anything less than total commitment to the role. If this production itself is less than perfect, Netrebko's raises this Il Trovatore to one that is well worth seeing.

Whether she was well-matched here with Plácido Domingo's Conte di Luna however was difficult to judge. Domingo was announced as indisposed due to illness and his subsequent performances were all cancelled, but he still took to the stage to perform for the live broadcast. He was visibly unwell and struggling for breath, but held up remarkably well even if his performance as the Count is still very much in baritenor mode. Marie-Nicole Lemieux played Azucena exceptionally well. Her account of the Zingarella's fate and her chilling closing exclamations could hardly be more dramatically delivered. Francesco Meli combined power with a rare delicacy as Manrico. The song of the troubadour should have the power to bewitch and enchant, particularly given the requirements of this staging, and that was all here.

Links: ARTE Concert, Medici.tv, Salzburg Festival

Rossini - Mosè in Egitto

Gioachino Rossini - Mosè in Egitto

Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, 2011

Graham Vick, Roberto Abbado, Riccardo Zanellato, Alex Esposito, Olga Senderskaya, Dmitri Korchak, Sonia Ganassi, Yijie Shi, Enea Scala, Chiara Amarù

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Director Graham Vick and set designer Stuart Nunn, as well as the administration team of the Pesaro Rossini Opera Festival, go to great pains in interviews on the ‘Making Of’ extra feature included on this release to emphasise that their 2011 production of Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto doesn’t take sides and offers no solutions, but rather strives to present a balanced account of the impact of conflict and oppression on a population, specifically in a modern-day Middle East context. Balanced it may be, but that doesn’t mean that this production plays it safe in any way. Far from it. Vick depicts Rossini’s Biblical epic in terms of suicide bombers, terrorists, torture, self-immolation and - perhaps most controversially - styling Moses as an Osama Bin Laden figure, wielding a Kalashnikov and stirring up a Holy War against their oppressors through inflammatory video recordings.

Many people who take a very traditional view of opera would argue that Moses in Egypt should reflect the original period of its Biblical subject and that a director has no right to update it or impose a modern-day concept onto a work that it wasn’t written to express. It’s true that works can often be twisted from their original context into something that they were never meant to be, which if less than faithful can nonetheless produce interesting results. Without contradicting the intent of a single word of the original libretto here however, Graham Vick shows that there is a case for opera not to be entirely subservient to the words alone, but that it should also take into account an interpretation of what the music is expressing. Rossini’s score isn’t set in any specific period, but is abstractly aligned rather to timeless human feelings and emotions. As a director, Vick clearly wants the production of Rossini’s great work to express those sentiments in a meaningful way to a modern-day audience, and the extraordinarily powerful nature of its presentation here clearly justifies that approach.

Graham Vick - admirably in my view - is noted for taking a “community” approach to opera. It’s not an elite entertainment for a selected few, it’s not a museum for the historical representation of works that are hundreds of years old, nor is it about putting on a so-called definitive performance to demonstrate the vocal techniques of singing stars and divas, but rather it’s about viewing opera as a living artform that has something meaningful to communicate to a broad range of people in the present day. That requires the involvement and participation of the audience, and even if that’s just engagement with the issues presented, then that’s an achievement alone. In order to shake the audience out of passive reception however, Vick and set designer Stuart Nunn strive to break down the barriers between the stage and the audience in other ways. Here at the Rossini Opera Festival for Mosè in Egitto, that involves using a venue in Pesaro that isn’t a traditional opera theatre - it’s a basketball arena - and dressing it in a way (like a refugee camp side by side with a modern palace) that feels more recognisable to what an audience would be familiar with from recent events in television news reports.

Vick’s approach the 2011 Pesaro Mosè in Egitto is borne out by the nature of the work itself as an ‘azione tragico-sacra‘ in three acts. Written for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1818, Moses in Egypt saw Rossini move away from his comic operas into a new period of mature works that were to some extent constrained by specific structural conventions and the demands of certain singers, but the composer managed nonetheless to attune these mannerisms brilliantly to serve the nature of the dramatic content. That’s immediately apparent from the lack of Overture in the opera and the fact that it opens instead with the ‘Plague of Darkness’ choral lament, which the director stages powerfully by having blood-stained Arabs walking through the audience, holding out photographs of friends and relatives lost in the latest bombardment/plague carried out on the word of Moses in retribution for the enslavement of the Hebrew people by the Egyptian Pharaoh, plastering the pictures and messages on walls in front of the orchestra pit. It’s a meaningful image that brings the power of Rossini’s writing home, and the same approach is used throughout, consistently and often to quite striking effect, the final scenes in particular making a unforgettable impression that underlines the relevance and importance of making the work say something about the world today.

I say “orchestra pit”, but it’s clear - and not just from the informal dress of the musicians - that the orchestra are also very much a part of the action - particularly in this production were the music carries much more than the libretto does alone. If there are any doubts about the efficacy of the treatment, the powerhouse performance of the Orchestra Teatro Comunale di Bologna will quickly put any doubts to rest. Directed by Roberto Abbado this is a sparkling, sensitive performance that captures the verve, rhythm and lyrical lightness of Rossini’s versatile arrangements. The singers in most of the principal roles on the Egyptian side aren’t heavy-weights by any means, but singers like Alex Esposito, Dmitri Korchak and Olga Senderskaya are all lyrically qualified and well-suited to the roles of Faraone, Osiride and Amaltea. There’s a little more personality and weight required however for the parts of Mosè and Elcia, both in terms of their vocal demands and the necessity of having the strength of personality to bring together the political and human elements that combine in the drama, and those demands are more than capably met by Riccardo Zanellato and Sonia Ganassi. Excellent and noteworthy performances from Yijie Shi (Aronne/Aaron), Enea Scala (High Priest Mambre) and Chiara Amarù (Amenofi) really contribute to the overall power and quality of the work and the performance as a whole.

The 2011 Pesaro Mosè in Egitto isn’t pretty to look at, but it’s not meant to be. It does make some controversial references, but there’s nothing here that can’t be justified as a genuine reflection of human nature and how people live in the world today. That might not be what you expect to see in an opera performance of Moses in Egypt, but the brilliance of the production here is that it works both ways, drawing inspiration from Rossini’s remarkable score, finding a meaningful modern way to bring its themes to life, while the same time injecting its ancient Biblical story with a heavy dose of reality. It’s a testimony to Rossini’s brilliant writing and Andrea Leone Tottola’s poetic libretto that, musically and dramatically, Mosè in Egitto is more than capable of bearing it. If it’s the intention of the Rossini Opera Festival to look afresh are both familiar and rarely performed works by the composer in order to reevaluate qualities and strengths that are clearly there but which have been buried under decades of operatic mannerisms, then this kind of production achieves that most impressively. Stripped right back to its expressive power, this 2011 production of Mosè in Egitto is consequently something of a revelation.

As with all the recent Pesaro Rossini releases, that revelation extends to being able to see and hear these performance presented so well in High Definition on Blu-ray. Outstanding image quality in full-HD 1080/60i, detailed and beautifully toned high resolution audio mixes only enhance the efforts of the performers. Mainly due to the unconventional nature of the venue, radio mics are used, presumably only for recording purposes, but the mixing is well done and comes across naturally here. As well as a booklet that covers the production and gives a synopsis, there is a Cast Gallery and a 25-minute long behind-the-scenes ‘Making Of’ with interviews that explain the intentions behind the concept very well. The BD is region-free, with subtitles in English, French and German.

Bellini - I Puritani

Vincenzo Bellini - I Puritani

De Nederlandse Opera 2009

Mariola Cantarero, John Osborn, Scott Hendricks, Riccardo Zanellato, Fredrika Brillembourg, Daniel Borowski, Gregorio Gonzalez

Opus Arte

Although it’s set during a period of considerable interest in English history - the Interregnum that takes in the conflict between the Cromwell’s Roundheads and Royalists loyal to the Charles I and the Stuarts - the libretto for Bellini’s I Puritani makes little use of the historical circumstances but rather, not surprisingly for an Italian bel canto opera, merely uses it as a backdrop for a story of romantic intrigue. If the libretto follows a well-worn generic line in this respect, I Puritani - Bellini’s last work before his early death - is however rather more interesting musically, having more in common with Verdi than Rossini or Donizetti and showing the composer at his most imaginative and inspired. Despite the weaknesses in the libretto, the opera is not just a situation for a series of arias and cabalettas, but shows rather greater musical attention paid to the characterisation and situation, and it’s particularly notable for its strong chorus work.

It’s fortunate then that there is great emphasis and attention paid to this musical aspect in the De Nederlandse production from 2009, but effort is made in other areas of the production in an attempt to make the work a little stronger and more coherent that it might otherwise be. There’s not a great deal one can do with the limitations of the plot, which amounts to little more than a historical romance, and a not very imaginative one at that. The central conflict at the heart of the work is less that of civil war opposition of ideologies, religion or allegiance to the crown as much as a romantic tussle for the hand of Elvira, the daughter of a prominent puritan clergyman. Her father has bowed to her own wishes to marry her beloved Arturo (Arthur Talbot), despite having promised her to Riccardo (Richard Forth).

Just before they are about to be married however, Arturo - who has royalist sympathies - takes advantage of an opportunity to rescue a prisoner about to be executed when he recognises her to be the queen, Enrichetta (Henrietta). Riccardo lets them escape, happy to see his rival disappear and be labelled a traitor, but Elvira is more devastated by what she sees as a betrayal, since Arturo has absconded with a prisoner who uses her own wedding veil as a disguise to help her escape. In the great operatic tradition, she of course goes mad, and her delusion persists when Arturo returns and tries to explain his actions and reaffirm his love for her, causing her to be responsible for his death.

The historical setting heightening the notions of romantic betrayal to the level of melodrama, replete with obligatory mad scene for the leading diva, I Puritani would seem to designed to fit the standard bel canto template, but Bellini’s score is far more varied and darker in tone than is customary, and the vocal writing isn’t there merely to show off the range of the soprano. Even so, it’s still a difficult opera to make work dramatically, and it does have singing challenges of its own. The apparent weaknesses and insubstantiality of the plot are however given something of a boost here by conductor Guiliano Carella returning to the original Paris score of 1835 and reinstating a number of scenes - some of them quite significant - that fill out the detail in the characterisation, and demonstrate the qualities of Bellini’s writing even further. Assisted by a very strong visual concept of the set designs by Es Devlin and by the stage direction of Francisco Negrin, the De Nederlandse production would be in contention for one of the best productions of this work but for the singing, which is good in most parts, but far from the standard needed to really lift this work to the level that is aspired to here.

Visually, the production design strikes an excellent balance between period (or theatrical period) in the costumes and a more modern conceptual approach to the stage design. Made up of rows of sheets that in Act I create ramparts for the soldiers in one scene before rolling smoothly into another where they show a committee of puritans in rows, there’s a wonderful sense of fluidity and continuity created that establishes the somewhat confusing political context and the drama in the most effective and eye-catching manner possible. Act II and III by contrast are relatively static, but again find strong visual ways to represent both the court that pronounces Arturo’s fate and reflect the horror that has afflicted Elvira’s mind. Conceptually, emphasis is also given to words, the steel sheets marked by bullet-holes and rivets that actually form a Braille background (the words of the Bible, I believe, in Dutch), with projections of words of passion and madness from the libretto projected in the latter scenes.

Despite efforts to make this a dramatically strong presentation, the singing isn’t quite as consistent. Mariola Cantarero is a little high and light for the dramatic range required for Elvira and consequently doesn’t always make the mark. She’s at her best in Act II, in her scenes of mad delusion, delivering a lovely ‘O rendetemi la speme‘, but her acting is limited elsewhere, and her high notes tend towards a screech. John Osborn is a terrific lyrical tenor who I like a lot, and he is excellent here throughout as Arturo, but he seems to me to find the role dramatically limiting and doesn’t really succeed in bringing the character to life. There’s a little more to get your teeth into in the role of Riccardo, but Scott Hendricks has a tendency to chew the scenery, and considering it’s made of steel here, that’s quite a mouthful. He gives it everything of course and sings the role well, but there’s more aggression here than art. The other roles are similarly variable never quite entirely holding it together either dramatically or vocally, although Fredrika Brillembourg is the best here as Enrichetta.

If the main roles don’t stand out as they might, the support they are given by the Chorus of the De Nederlandse Opera is superb, as is the work of the Amsterdam orchestra, who deliver an impassioned performance that is attuned to the dramatic content, directed from the pit by Guiliano Carella who clearly has a lot of love for the work and very specific ideas about how it should be presented. That passion comes through in the extra features on the Blu-ray disc, which look at the rehearsals and consider the variations of the Paris version of I Puritani in interesting detail. The quality of the recording is also of a very high standard, with a clear image and strong, detailed High-Definition audio tracks in PCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1. The BD is all-region, BD50 dual layer, 1080i full HD, with subtitles in English, French, German and Dutch. The booklet contains an essay on the work and a full synopsis.