NabuccoMet - Page: 1 of 1

THE STORY:
Nabucco, king of Babylon, prepares to enter and seize the Tempe of Solomon where his daughter, Fenena, is held hostage. Before Nabucco can make his move, however, his other daughter, Abigaille, disguised as an Assyrian warrior leads a band of soldiers to the temple and finds Fenena and her lover, Ismaele, leader of the Israeli army, inside. Trouble brews when Abigaille learns that her half-sister has fallen in love with the same man as she – Ismaele. The two sisters had met Ismaele while served as an ambassador to Babylon. Abigaille becomes jealous and enraged when she further discovers that she is not the daughter of Nabucco, but an adopted former slave, and that the thrown will pass to Fenena when Nabucco dies. Abigaille concocts a plot to destroy her father and be done with her rival half-sister, only to find that in the end it is she who is undone by her own treachery.

WHERE I VIEWED IT:
The Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center is, of course, a wonderful place to view opera, convenient to underground parking, restaurants, shopping and the bus terminal for those who live outside the city and may just want to travel for the opera and leave afterward.

THE PERFORMANCE:
Few opera companies can muster what it takes to build sets as grandly as the Met does, and at Saturday evening’s (February 19, 2005) performance of Verdi’s Nabucco, the Met didn’t disappoint. Using a revolving stage comprised on one side of the Jewish then Babylonian Temple, complete with giant golden idol and flaming torches – and on the other, a large tiered wall upon which stood 100-plus chorus members, scattered bottom to top, from which they delivered their parts, this Nabucco had the realism and scale of reality, even if the sets were either too dark and colorless on the one extreme or too brightly lit on the other. Few would disagree that what was offered here was impressive. Indeed, when the production notes said that certain scenes used real flames and flash effects, it was an understatement. In the burning of the Jewish Temple, for example, the Temple was set afire in a remarkable and what must have been a truly nerve-wracking Kodak moment for the New York City Fire Marshall. It was almost unsettling to see fire rage as it did on stage, even if only briefly. Nicely done!
Regarding the score, this Nabucco, conducted by James Levine was performed with a respectable and, at times, thrilling delivery that both resonated throughout the hall when called for and played comfortable second-fiddle when the performers were singing. Its sound was full, rich and deep throughout the entire performance. One comes to expect this level of perfection from the Met orchestra and it rarely disappoints.
In a similar vein, Nabucco calls for a strong chorus and the Met chorus also delivered well. Interestingly, if there was any fault with the chorus last evening it would be with the stage direction. What does a large chorus do when it is not singing? Well, if it is not involved in the libretto, I suppose it can melt away. But here, Verdi wrote the chorus to be an integral part of what was going on. If a main character is singing – the singing is usually to rally the troops, motivate the masses, whatever. It can be distracting and actually slow down the momentum to see so many people standing idly in the face of such impassioned and stirring pleas for action. It creates a conflict between what is being sung, or called for, and what the eye sees. In a production of this scale, a stage director has to ask: what would so many people be doing in such a circumstance? and then have them do it.
As for the singers: clearly the standout singer in last night’s performance was baritone Nikolai Putilin in the role of Nabucco. His voice was larger-than-life, strong and clear, and his delivery was flawless to the very end. He projected well in this demanding part and sang into his character just the right amount of humanity and vulnerability as well as power. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Maria Gulleghina’s Abigaille. It’s not that Ms. Gulleghina sang poorly. She didn’t. She sang quite well. One sensed that she was pushing, however, too hard, and that the smoothness and power one expects to come bundled from a soprano, came here in two parts that were very noticeably separate. It wasn’t until Act Three that what appeared to be a slight edge in Ms. Gulleghina’s voice seemed to subside and Abigaille surfaced. Mezzo-soprano Wendy White, as the sister, Fenena, on the other hand, seemed to have it all together and remained consistently even in her singing; her voice retaining its smoothness while at the same time being able to project its depth, especially in the first two acts where her part interacted vocally more often with Abigaille and Ismaele, sung well and sturdily by Gwyn Hughes Jones. Kudos must also go to baritone Paata Burchuladze for his strong performance as Zaccaria, the high priest of the Hebrews.
Lastly, it’s nice to see opera performed as it was written, in the time period for which it was conceived with costumes and wigs that were all period appropriate and smart.
All in all this performance was a seven out of ten: with deductions for poorly conceived use of chorus, harsh lighting and insufficient background color, and lastly, for an Abigaille that, while quite good, seemed to push too hard. Seven out of ten isn’t bad, which is about what I thought of this performance: it wasn’t bad at all.

Conductor, James Levine
Production, Eligah Moshinsky
Set design, John Napier
Costume design, Andreane Neofiton
Lighting, Howerd Harrison
Stage Direction, J. Knighten Smit
Chorus Master, Raymond Hughes