Nabucco

September 22, 25, 27, 29 and 30, 2012

Verdi's monumental opera follows the plight of the Jews as they are conquered and exiled from their homeland by King Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco). With its soaring choruses, triumphant arias and bold drama, Nabucco won Verdi's reputation as an operatic icon and national hero.

Sung in Italian with English translations projected above the stage. 

Dates + Performances

Please note: due to the Nabucco Opening Night Cocktail Party, the Mezzanine level of the Marzitelli Foyer will not be open to the public until 7:15pm that evening.

Digital Program

You can view our Nabucco program online in any modern web browser. You can also download our program for offline viewing in PDF.

Nabucco

baritone

soprano

bass

tenor

soprano

bass

tenor

soprano

Introduction

Nabucco is an abbreviation of Nabucodonosor, or Nebuchadnezzar (605–562 BC), the king of Assyria who is remembered for the rebuilding of Babylon – and the creation of one of the wonders of the ancient world, its famous Hanging Gardens – as well as for the destruction of Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. Inspired by historical events recounted in the Bible and the philosophy espoused by the prophet Jeremiah, librettist Temistocle Solera based his text on them, including relevant Scriptural quotations to preface each act. The personal love story and surrounding intrigue are depicted by fictional characters, lending a human dimension to the larger geopolitical forces in play.

At the time of the opera’s premiere, the whole of northern Italy was suffering under an increasingly unbearable Austrian domination. Insinuating that the plight of the Israelites under oppression by the Babylonians was comparable to that of the Milanese, Verdi amplified the call for Risorgimento, literally a "resurgence" of the people's will to achieve Italian unification. In the years following the opera’s premiere, the contemporary relevance of the ancient themes of foreign oppression only intensified. 

Part One – Jerusalem

Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel; Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. [Jeremiah 34:2]

The Temple of Solomon – 587 BC  Seeking refuge in the Temple of Solomon, the Israelites are mustering their strength to resist the fearsome Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar), king of Assyria, who has attacked and is desecrating the city. Amidst the chaos, Zaccaria, the Israelites’ spiritual leader, hurriedly seeks shelter from the warfare along with his sister, Anna. In an effort to negotiate an end to the siege, Zaccaria’s forces have kidnapped Nabucco’s younger daughter, Fenena, and now hold her hostage. He implores his people to be resolute (“Sperate, o figli”) in their defiance of the occupying armies. Ismaele, nephew of the king of Jerusalem and an Israelite military leader, breathlessly recounts the horrors of the street combat that is swiftly approaching their stronghold in the Temple. Zaccaria believes his hostage will prove a powerful negotiation tool with his enemy; he hands custody of Fenena over to Ismaele, as the Hebrews bravely face the turmoil of the battle outside the sanctuary of the Temple walls.

It is soon evident that Ismaele and Fenena are not strangers but rather former lovers, having met while Ismaele was in Babylon on a failed diplomatic mission. Their romantic reunion is interrupted when Abigaille, Fenena’s older sister, infiltrates the temple. She scornfully turns on Ismaele as a warrior weakened by love. She then confesses her own love of him, and implies that she has the power to call a truce, if only he will return her affection (“Io t'amavo”). Unable to deny his devotion to Fenena, he offers to forfeit his life for his people. Hebrew refugees and wounded warriors are driven back into the Temple, fearing for their lives as the Assyrian forces overpower them. When Nabucco appears, taking possession of their most sacred stronghold, Zaccaria condemns his arrogance and threatens to slay Fenena, but Ismaele prevents her brutal execution. As the Jews turn on Ismaele for his treachery, Nabucco orders the temple sacked and burned, and declares to his troops that it shall be a crime to show any mercy to the Hebrews.

Part Two – The Unbeliever

Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord goeth forth with fury, a continuing whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked. [Jeremiah 30:23]

Several months later in Nabucco’s palace in Babylon  Nabucco has left the palace to wage another war, leaving Fenena in charge as regent queen in his absence, infuriating Abigaille who believes that she, as the elder daughter, should have that right. Confirming her growing suspicion, she has found an official document proving that she is not Nabucco’s daughter but rather the child of slaves with no line of rightful succession to the throne. Angry and hurt at Nabucco's deception, she swears vengeance on him and Fenena, mindful that her devotion to Ismaele could have changed everything for the better (“Anch’io dischiuso”) had he only returned her affection. The corrupt High Priest of Baal interrupts her musings to announce that Fenena, in a gesture of humanity and good will, has liberated the captive Israelites. To punish what they regard as Fenena's treason, the priests have hastily arranged Abigaille’s ascension to the throne, falsely announcing that Nabucco has been slain in battle. Abigaille feels she is vindicated and that fate has now restored to her the honor she deserves (“Salgo già del trono aurato”).

A gallery in Nabucco’s Palace  Zaccaria, aware of the menace and danger that his people are in, prays that his faith will give him the resolve to continue fighting (“Tu sul labbro”). He believes he may prevail in the conflict by converting Fenena, who has shown compassion for the Hebrews' plight. The Levites reproach Ismaele for his seeming treason, but Zaccaria reassures them that Ismaele has not betrayed them, since Fenena herself, in an act of conversion, has vowed to be faithful to the God of Israel. Abdallo, a Babylonian guard, rushes in with the false report of the king’s death, warning Fenena that she is now in danger.

A Hall in the Palace  The High Priest of Baal, followed by Abigaille and her supporters, enters to proclaim Abigaille ruler; her first act as queen shall be to condemn the Hebrews to death. When Abigaille demands the royal crown that Nabucco has entrusted to Fenena, the girl refuses to yield it. To the astonishment of all, Nabucco–very much alive, if mentally unstable–suddenly appears, seizes the crown and places it on his own head. Everyone cowers before the tyrant's rage (“S’appressan gl’istanti”), but sensing that his power is slipping away, he brazenly announces that he is not only their king, but their God as well. As he commands them to prostrate themselves before him, his insanity becomes apparent to all. Abigaille seizes the moment of personal and political turmoil to usurp the crown from the deranged king.

Part Three – The Prophecy

Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the islands shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.    [Jeremiah 50:39]

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon  Abigaille, in collusion with the religious leaders, exults in the praise of her subjects. In an effort to suppress any further insurrection, the High Priest of Baal exhorts her to put the Hebrews to death. Nabucco, having descended further into madness, arrives to see his throne now occupied by his illegitimate daughter. Taking advantage of his confusion, she persuades him to give his approval to the death decree against the Hebrews. He wavers, but her venomous taunts soon convince him. When he asks what has become of Fenena, Abigaille replies that she has converted to the Jewish faith and will therefore be executed with the others. Horrified by Abigaille's intentions, he searches for the parchment that would reveal that she has no right to the throne. She produces and then quickly destroys the evidence. He cries out for his guards to assist him, but they are no longer loyal to him. As he begs Abigaille to show clemency for Fenena, the guards, following Abigaille’s orders, lead him off to prison.

The banks of the Euphrates River  Taking a moment of respite from their forced labor along the banks of the river, the Hebrew exiles bid their plaintive thoughts to fly “on golden wings” toward their beloved homeland (“Va, pensiero”). Zaccaria urges them not to despair, but to use the power of their anger to break the chains of their captivity and to strike their oppressors in brutal retaliation.

Part Four – The Shattered Idol

Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish,and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces.          [Jeremiah 50:2]

A prison cell  Wracked with guilt and suffering from a worsening derangement, Nabucco is uncertain whether he is awake or trapped in a nightmare. He imagines Fenena being led away to the death to which he has doomed her. Losing the last shred of his faith, he prays the God of the Hebrews for forgiveness, pledging to convert his people ("Dio di Giuda!"). Attempting to intervene on his daughter’s behalf, he realizes that he is indeed a prisoner and powerless to help her. Though believing that he has been rescued by Abdallo and that his army is once again loyal to him, he sees the death decree being carried out before him. He hears Zaccaria hail Fenena as a martyr to the cause of the Israelites as she resigns herself to death ("Oh, dischiuso è il firmamento"). The distraught Nabucco renounces Baal and, as a sign of his conversion, orders the god's idol to be destroyed. His senses failing him once again, he wonders if he sees Abigaille approaching. Having poisoned herself in horror at what her ambition has brought upon her kingdom, Abigaille confesses her crimes, hoping that it is not too late for Ismaele and Fenena to be reunited. Slipping in and out of consciousness, she prays to Jehovah for pardon (“Su me … morente”) as the Hebrews reaffirm that their God will always raise up those who are afflicted.  

     – synopsis by Thaddeus Strassberger

print synopsis

Nabucco

Michael Christie (conductor)

Over his 16-year career, he has conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Houston Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony and the Cincinnati Symphony, among many others. Christie made his New York Philharmonic debut in March 2007, stepping in for an ailing Riccardo Muti.

Michael Christie has also established an excellent reputation as an opera conductor, starting with his operatic and ballet performances at the Opernhaus Zürich. That special relationship began in the 1997–1998 season and continued for many seasons with his highly successful debut conducting performances of Romeo and Juliet and a new production of Hansel and Gretel. Most recently, extraordinary critical response has surrounded his Opera Theatre of St. Louis productions of Unsuk Chin's Alice in Wonderland, John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles and John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer and his Minnesota Opera productions of Puccini's Madame Butterfly, Verdi’s La traviata, Bernard Herrmann’s Wuthering Heights and Kevin Puts’ Pulitzer winning world premiere production of Silent Night.

Mr. Christie has also worked at the Wexford Festival Opera conducting the European premiere of Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles. This production, a collaborative effort with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and directed by James Robinson, won the 2010 Irish Times Irish Theatre Award for Best Opera. He conducted the opera again at the Aspen Music Festival in August 2010.

Michael Christie earlier worked with the Finnish National Opera, the Queensland Opera (Australia) and in the Netherlands, conducting John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer.

Michael Christie first came to international attention in 1995 when he was awarded a special prize for “Outstanding Potential” at the First International Sibelius Conductors’ Competition in Helsinki. Following the competition, he was invited to become an apprentice conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and subsequently worked with Daniel Barenboim in Chicago and at the Berlin State Opera during the 1996–1997 season.

Subsequently, he spent much of his time in Europe with engagements including the DSO Berlin, Orchestre National de Lille, Swedish Radio Symphony, Netherlands Radio Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, NDR Hannover Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic.

Australia has been a favorite musical destination for Michael. In addition to his tenure in Brisbane, he has also conducted the Sydney Symphony, Tasmanian Symphony and the Western Australian Symphony in Perth.

Michael graduated from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music with a bachelor’s degree in trumpet performance. He met and married Alexis, a physician, in Australia and they have a daughter, Sinclair, born in 2008.

Christie Hageman (Anna)

Soprano Christie Hageman joins Minnesota Opera as a first-year Resident Artist singing Anna in Nabucco and Liù in Turandot. During the 2011–2012 season, she was heard as Abigail Williams in The Crucible with Rimrock Opera, Juliette in Roméo et Juliette with Livermore Valley Opera, Micaëla in Carmen with Opera Fort Collins and appeared with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Denver. As an Opera Colorado Young Artist, Ms. Hageman made her professional mainstage debut as Clorinda in the Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production of La Cenerentola. Christie graduated with her Master of Music degree from the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder as a student of Julie Simson and with a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from San Jose State University, California, studying with Erie Mills. While taking a year off, Christie fulfilled her duties as Miss Montana 2006, traveling her home state and speaking to students with the platform “Music Makes the Difference.” 

Roles at CU include the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen, Emily in Ned Rorem's Our Town, Musetta in La bohème, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Flora in La traviata and Paquette in Candide. Ms. Hageman has performed with the CU Symphonic Orchestra as a winner of the concerto competition, the Billings Symphony Orchestra, Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy, Songfest Young Artist Program in Washington and on the Miss America stage in Las Vegas. She won first place in the prestigious Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition in 2010, placed third in the Rocky Mountain Region of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2011 and was a regional finalist in 2012.

Brenda Harris (Abigaille)

Soprano Brenda Harris has appeared in leading roles with opera companies and orchestras throughout the world. In North America, she has been heard at the Metropolitan Opera (Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito), Washington Opera (Odabella in Attila, title role in Agrippina and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni), Washington Concert Opera (Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux), Minnesota Opera (title roles in Norma, Armida and Semiramide, Camilla in Orazi e Curiazi and Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito), Opera Omaha (the title role in Ermione), New York City Opera (title role in Handel’s Agrippina, Donna Anna), Austin Lyric Opera (Chrysothemis in Elektra and Katarina in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk), Atlanta Opera (Violetta in La traviata, Desdemona in Otello, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and Countess in Le nozze di Figaro), Michigan Opera Theatre (Norma and the Countess), Arizona Opera (Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth), Opera Theatre of St. Louis (Countess), Opera Pacific (Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus and Donna Anna) and Utah Opera (Leonore in Fidelio, title role in Ariadne auf Naxos and Lady Macbeth).

In Canada, she has sung leading roles with the Canadian Opera Company, Montreal Opera, Edmonton Opera, Opera de Quebec and Vancouver Opera.

In Europe, Ms. Harris has appeared in Spoleto, Italy as Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, with Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg as Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito and the title role in Barber's Vanessa, and most recently again as Vanessa with Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

In 2006, Ms. Harris debuted the Strauss Four Last Songs with the New Haven Symphony as well as Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony under Maestro Keith Lockhart and the Utah Symphony.

In 2007, she returned to the role of Lady Macbeth with Edmonton Opera as well as the role of Tosca with the Cleveland Opera, and rejoined Chicago’s Music of the Baroque with Jane Glover conducting. She also returned to Austin Lyric Opera for the season opening Gala.

The 2008–2009 season emphasized operas of the 20th century – three by Benjamin Britten: Albert Herring (Lady Billows) and The Turn of the Screw (Governess) with Portland Opera and Mrs. Julian in Owen Wingrave with Chicago Opera Theater and the role of Anna Maurrant in Kurt Weill’s Street Scene with Chautauqua Opera. She also added the role of Agathe in Weber’s Der Freischütz at Des Moines Metro Opera.

In 2010, she returned to the Minnesota Opera for Elisabetta in Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux, to both Opera Lyra (Ottawa Canada) and Des Moines Metro Opera for Lady Macbeth and Kansas City Lyric Opera as Donna Anna. Minnesota audiences saw her again in 2011 as Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda as part of its ongoing Tudor Trilogy.

In concert, she performed Beethoven’s Ah, Perfido with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra and the Verdi Requiem with the North Carolina Master Chorale. She has also performed as soloist with the St. Louis Symphony, The Orchestra of St. Luke's, Honolulu Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic and Boston Baroque as well as numerous Carnegie Hall performances with the Oratorio Society of New York.

Ms. Harris has recorded leading roles for Newport Classic, including Scarlatti's Ishmael, Haydn's La cantarina and The Creation, Handel's Tolomeo on Vox and Daron Hagen’s Shining Brow on Naxos.

Jason Howard (Nabucco)

Raised in the rich singing tradition of South Wales, Jason Howard is now recognized as one of the United Kingdom's leading performers on the international operatic stage. Upon leaving his first career as a fireman, he took up studies at Trinity College of Music and the Royal College of Music with John Wakefield and Norman Bailey respectively, and commenced his career at Scottish Opera, subsequently singing with all the major opera companies and orchestras in the United Kingdom. In the past fifteen years he has sung to critical acclaim throughout Europe and North America in addition to his many United Kingdom engagements.

Long known as an outstanding performer in the French and Italian repertoire, Verdi featured highly in his output in the late 1990s and 2000s, and Jason sang the baritone roles in Attila, La traviata, Don Carlos, Rigoletto, Macbeth, Nabucco and Il trovatore. Other highlights included his debut at the Royal Opera House and Paris Opera as Marcello La bohème and his debut at Chicago Lyric Opera as Adam Brant in Mourning Becomes Electra (also performed in Seattle and New York).

With his most recent success as Wotan in David McVicar's wonderful production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg, he is now quickly establishing himself as a leading exponent of the German heroic repertoire. One review described him as “the Wotan of his generation” after his debut in Die Walküre. Together with the recently performed Strauss' Orest and Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer, he continued to expand his German repertoire with performances of Jochanaan in Salome in Lisbon and the United States in spring 2010.

Other highlights in recent years have included his debut in the South American premiere of Britten's Death in Venice at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, and the roles of Prospero in Thomas Adès' The Tempest and Tonio and Alfio in Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci for Welsh National Opera. In the winter of 2009, 19 years after his performances of Ravenal in the RSC/Opera North production of Showboat, he finally returned to the musical stage with performances of Emile de Beque in the Lincoln Center Theater production of South Pacific. In 2010, he returned to the heroic baritone repertoire with his first Scarpia in Tosca in Salzburg and his first Iago in Otello in America. In 2011, Jason made his German debut at Frankfurt Opera singing Scarpia. Other recent roles include Baron Jaroslav in Vec Makropulos at Opéra National du Rhin and Giorgio Germont in La traviata at Welsh National Opera (2012). Future engagements include his debut in Warsaw as Prus in Vec Makropulos and a return to the role of Wotan at the Longborough Festival and the Grand Teatre de Liceu.

  Jason’s early recordings include The Student Prince, A Song of Norway, A Little Night Music, Showboat, Calamity Jane and The King and I for TER. He also sang Dr. Malatesta in a recording of Don Pasquale for Chandos, which was followed by Mephisto in a recording of Boulanger's Faust et Helène. More recently, he released a solo compact disc of songs from the classic Hollywood musicals made famous by two early singing heroes, Howard Keel and Gordon MacRae, on Silva Screen Records, titled Make Believe, The Hollywood Baritones.

Joel Ivany (assistant director)

Canadian Stage Director Joel Ivany’s recent projects include directing Hansel and Gretel (Canadian Opera Company); The Turn of the Screw (Against the Grain Theatre); Così fan tutte (The Banff Centre); and Associate Director, Nabucco (Washington National Opera). He was a recent finalist and winner in the European Opera-Directing Prize for his concept of Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi. Mr. Ivany has assisted and revived Thaddeus Strassberger’s production of Le nozze di Figaro as well as assisting on Rigoletto, both for Norwegian National Opera as well as assisting Strassberger at The Bard Summerscape for Le roi malgré lui. He has also assisted Robert Carsen, Orfeo ed Euridice (Canadian Opera Company); Iphigénie en Tauride (COC); La fanciulla del West (Norwegian National Opera). He is the founder and artistic director of Against the Grain Theatre in Toronto. Upcoming engagements with Strassberger include revival Nabucco (Minnesota Opera) and assisting Robert Carsen at Deutsche Oper Berlin on a new production of L'amour et les trois oranges. Ivany will be directing a new production of Les contes d'Hoffmann with Edmonton Opera in February 2013.

John Robert Lindsey (Ismaele)

Colorado native tenor John Robert Lindsey is a recent graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he earned his Master of Music in vocal performance under the tutelage of Julie Simson. Past engagements include the Tenor Soloist in Handel’s Messiah, Sam Polk in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, the Stage Manager in Ned Rorem’s Our Town and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni. Mr. Lindsey was met with numerous successes in competitions recently. He was a regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions for the past two years, as well as taking third place in 2010 and first place in 2011 at the prestigious Denver Lyric Opera Guild competition. 

For Minnesota Opera’s 2011–2012 season, Mr. Lindsey appeared as Jonathan Dale in Silent Night, Schmidt in Werther, Normanno in Lucia di Lammermoor and Goro in Madame Butterfly. He also sang a concert of Carmen highlights with the Mankato Symphony. This season he returns as Ismaele in Nabucco, Hervey in Anna Bolena, Marcellus in Hamlet and Pang in Turandot.

Mark McCullough (lighting designer)

Mark McCullough maintains a successful career as lighting designer for opera and theater companies in the United States and Europe. He has lit productions for such opera companies as the Metropolitan Opera (Le nozze di Figaro); New York City Opera (Il viaggio a Reims); Washington Opera (Die Walküre, Das Rheingold and Porgy and Bess); Strasbourg’s Opéra National du Rhin (Benjamin Britten’s The Beggar’s Opera); Royal Opera Covent Garden (The Queen of Spades); Opera North (Eugene Onegin); Boston Lyric Opera (Aida, Madama Butterfly and Tosca); Florida Grand Opera; Virginia Opera; Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College  (Shostakovich’s The Nose); Glimmerglass Opera (John Philip Sousa’s rarity The Glassblowers and The Mother of Us All); San Francisco Opera (Rigoletto, Arshak II, The Mother of Us All); Seattle Opera; Dallas Opera (the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s Thérèse Raquin); Teatro Real, Madrid, Spain (Luisa Miller); San Diego Opera and numerous productions at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.  Among his theater credits are Rebecca (Broadway); the revival of Jesus Christ Superstar (Broadway and U.K. tour); Whistle Down the Wind (Aldwych Theatre, London); Webster’s The White Devil and Schiller’s Don Carlos (Royal Shakespeare Company); as well as Off-Broadway productions including Wendy Wasserstein’s Old Money at Lincoln Center Theatre; How I Learned to Drive and The Long Christmas Ride Home. McCullough’s work in regional theater has been seen at the La Jolla Playhouse; Mark Taper Forum; Hartford Stage; Steppenwolf and Center Stage, among others. The American designer is an alumnus of the North Carolina School of the Arts and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Drama.

JAX Messenger (lighting design)

JAX Messenger lives with his family in Austin, Texas. Most recently, he will be assisting on the design of Rebecca for Broadway. Other lighting design engagements include The Barber of Seville for the Merola Opera Program; The Sleeping Beauty, Fluctuating Hemlines, Shoogie and Don Quixote for The Washington Ballet; Requiem and The Elixir of Love for Families for San Francisco Opera; Waltzpurgisnacht and Majisimas for Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo; Odyssey for The Crucible as well as recreating designs for High Lonesome (Nick Phillips), The Nutcracker (Tony Tucci), Romeo and Juliet (Kevin Meek), The Four Temperaments (Tony Tucci), Cor Perdut (Nacho Duato), Push Comes to Shove (Jennifer Tipton) and Wonderland (Jeff Bruckerhoff), all for The Washington Ballet.

Mr. Messenger also served as Assistant Lighting Designer on a number of upcoming productions such as Nabucco (Washington National Opera); Xerxes, Lucrezia Borgia, The Heart of a Soldier, Götterdämmerung, Siegfried, Das Rheingold, Cyrano de Bergerac, Madame Butterfly, Werther, Aida, Otello, The Abduction from the Seraglio, Il trovatore, La traviata, Tosca, Three Decembers, L’elisir d’amore, Boris Godunov and The Bonesetter’s Daughter (San Francisco Opera); Le Corsaire, Rooster, The Great Gatsby, Pacific, Brahms on Edge, Bolero, The Great Gatsby, Peter Pan and Bolero (The Washington Ballet).

Richard Ollarsaba (High Priest of Baal)

A native of Tempe, Arizona, bass-baritone Richard Ollarsaba recently completed his studies for a Master of Music degree and a Post Graduate Certificate from the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute – University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem, North Carolina studying under Marilyn Taylor. Mr. Ollarsaba’s credits with the Fletcher Opera Institute include Cecil in Maria Stuarda, Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte and Sir John Falstaff in Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. He made his Piedmont Opera debut in its 2010 production of Il trovatore in the role of Ferrando. The following season, Mr. Ollarsaba returned to Piedmont Opera in its productions of Don Giovanni as Masetto and The Crucible as Reverend Hale. He then reprised Ferrando for North Carolina Opera in 2012.

Mr. Ollarsaba was a two-time fellow at the Music Academy of the West and a young artist with Chautauqua Opera. He is a first place winner of the Charles A. Lynam competition which earned him featured performances of select arias with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, where he was praised for his “wonderful artistry and beautiful and moving voice” – CVNC. He was a Metropolitan Opera National Council North Carolina district winner, taking second place in the regional competition.

Mr. Ollarsaba received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music in Cleveland, Ohio, where he studied under Mary Schiller. As a Resident Artist for Minnesota Opera this season, Mr. Ollarsaba sings the High Priest in Nabucco, Lord Rochefort in Anna Bolena, Horatio in Hamlet and Timur in Turandot.

John Relyea (Zaccaria)

John Relyea continues to distinguish himself as one of today's finest basses.

Mr. Relyea has appeared in many of the world’s most celebrated opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera (where he is an alumnus of the Merola Opera Program and a former Adler Fellow), Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Vienna State Opera and the Mariinksy Theater. His roles include the title roles in Le nozze di Figaro, Bluebeard’s Castle, Don Quixotte, Attila and Aleko; Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Colline in La bohème, Don Alfonso in Lucrezia Borgia, Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Alidoro in La Cenerentola, Giorgio in I puritani, Banquo in Macbeth, Garibaldo in Rodelinda, Méphistophélès in both Faust and La damnation de Faust, the Four Villains in Les contes d’Hoffmann, Escamillo in Carmen, Marke in Tristan und Isolde, Caspar in Der Freischütz, Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress, Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia and King René in Iolante.

Mr. Relyea also remains in high demand throughout the concert world where he appears regularly with orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic. He has also appeared at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, Blossom, Vail, Lanaudière, Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne and Mostly Mozart festivals and in the BBC Proms. In recital, he has been presented at Weill Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Wigmore Hall in London, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor and the University of Chicago Presents series.

The many conductors with whom Mr. Relyea has worked with include Harry Bicket, Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gustavo Dudamel, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Neville Marriner, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Sir Roger Norrington, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Sir Simon Rattle, Donald Runnicles, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Ilan Volkov.

Mr. Relyea’s most recent recording of the Verdi Requiem was released on the LSO Live label in September 2009. Other recordings include Idomeneo with Sir Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (EMI), Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Sir Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (EMI) and the Metropolitan Opera’s DVD presentations of Don Giovanni, I puritani and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Deutsche Grammophon) and Macbeth (Metropolitan Opera HD Live Series).

In 2011–2012, Mr. Releyea returned to the both the Seattle Opera and the Washington Concert Opera as the title role in Attila, and to the Bayerische Staatsoper as the Four Villains. He also made his debut at the Canadian Opera Company as the Four Villains and appeared in concert with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Bergen Festspiele. This past summer he appeared in concert in the Cincinnati May and Tanglewood festivals, and made his debut at the Theater an der Wien as the Four Villains. In 2012-2013, he returns to the Royal Opera House as Bertram in Robert le Diable and the Metropolitan Opera as Méphistophélès in Faust, and makes his role debut as Zaccaria in Nabucco at the Minnesota Opera.

Mr. Relyea is the winner of the 2009 Beverly Sills Award and the 2003 Richard Tucker Award.

Heidi Spesard-Noble (choreographer)

Heidi Spesard-Noble is a highly versatile dancer, singer and choreographer in the Twin Cities performing arts community. Her choreography credits include Midlife: the Crisis Musical, Brigadoon, The Christmas Show and Big Bang at Chanhassen Dinner Theatre and the Minnesota Opera’s productions of Carmen, La traviata, Orazi e Curiazi and Lakmé. She has also served as assistant choreographer for Doug Varone in this season's Cinderella as well as for productions of The Grapes of Wrath in Minnesota, Salt Lake City and Pittsburgh. As a director, she has staged Sesame Street Live, and for Project Opera, Henze’s Tom Thumb, Britten’s Noyes Fludde and Weill’s Down in the Valley.

At Chanhassen she has appeared in numerous productions including The Music Man as Pic-a-little, My Fair Lady as Lady Boxington, Can Can as Marie, Crazy For You as Mitzi, 42nd Street as Anytime Annie, Phantom as Fleur, Hello Dolly, Oklahoma as the Saloon Girl and Brigadoon as Maggie.

As a dancer, Ms. Spesard-Noble was recently seen in Cinderella with Ballet of the Dolls. Other dance credits include the Opera’s The Merry Widow, Minnesota Dance Theatre’s Nutcracker Fantasy, The Rite of Spring, Beauty and the Beast, Swan Lake, Mythical Hunters and Allegro Brilliant, and An American in Paris, Cakewalk and Valse Fantasie with the State Ballet of Missouri. She received her BFA in dance from the University of Utah.

Thaddeus Strassberger (stage director)

"Strongly cast and insightfully directed, Les Huguenots proved mesmerizing." – The Wall Street Journal

“Der ferne Klang, directed by Thaddeus Strassberger and conducted by Leon Botstein, delivered the opera’s blast of intensity with enough affective power to make it clear that we’ve all been missing out." – The New Yorker

"Director/designer Thaddeus Strassberger had a clear vision for this Hamlet, and the result is an outstanding production, in which Thomas' lush, romantic music complements Strassberger's 20th-century setting and vice versa … Strassberger and the Washington National Opera deserve credit for allowing access to his work through this exciting, innovative production." – The Washington Examiner

Thaddeus Strassberger is "a young American director who manages to straddle the sometimes very different worlds of European and United States opera production seamlessly. Strassberger's productions are fresh and thoughtful, and he often presents us with modern parallels without being contrived," writes Opera Now magazine. His career as a director and scenic designer for opera in Europe and North America was launched when he was awarded the prestigious European Opera Prize in 2005 for his production of La Cenerentola (Opera Ireland/Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden).

Strassberger's upcoming engagements include debuts with the Los Angeles Opera, Palau de les Arts in Valencia, Theater an der Wien (Vienna), Opera Company of Philadelphia, The Minnesota Opera, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (London).

Following the success of his production of Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet for the Washington National Opera conducted by Plácido Domingo and Patrick Fournillier, he returned to the Kennedy Center in 2012 to direct and design the scenery for Verdi's Nabucco, which is a co-production with the Minnesota Opera and the Opera Company of Philadelphia.

In September 2012, he will debut with the Los Angles Opera with a new production of Verdi's rare and engaging I due Foscari, with Plácido Domingo making his role debut as Francesco Foscari and James Conlon conducting.

His new productions of Le nozze di Figaro and The Rape of Lucretia (Norwegian National Opera) were highly praised by both critics and the public and are scheduled for revivals in the coming seasons due to popular demand. His production of the rarely heard Rossini's La gazzetta (Rossini in Wildbad Festival, Germany) garnered nominations for both Best Production and Best Direction from Opernwelt Magazine in 2008.

Following his critically acclaimed new production of Meyerbeer's grand opera Les Huguenots at the Bard Summerscape, the first staged production in New York in nearly a century, he returned to create the first American staged production of Franz Schreker's masterpiece Der ferne Klang in summer 2010. He returns again in 2012 to direct the North American staged premiere of Chabrier's opera-comique Le roi malgré lui which is a co-production with Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland.

Other highlights include La fanciulla del West (Tiroler Landestheater, Innsbruck), Aida (Lyric Opera of Kansas City), Orfeo ed Euridice and Turandot (Theater Augsburg), La traviata and Die Zauberflöte (Arizona Opera), La fanciulla del West (l'Opéra de Montréal) and Ariadne auf Naxos (Wolftrap Opera).

Strassberger earned his degree in Engineering from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City and further studies were supported by a Fulbright Fellowship to complete the Corso di Specializzazione per Scenografi Realizzatori at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 2001.

Mattie Ullrich (costume designer)

Mattie Ullrich makes her Minnesota Opera debut. Her recent work in opera includes I due Foscari for Los Angeles Opera, in coproduction with Vienna (Austria), Valencia (Spain) and London; The Rape of Lucretia for the Norwegian Opera, Le roi malgré lui and Der ferne Klang for Bard SummerScape; and Zaïde, Così fan tutte and Ariadne auf Naxos for Wolf Trap Opera. She received the European Opera Prize in 2006 for her collaboration with Thaddeus Strassberger for Opera Ireland's production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola. In addition to opera, her repertoire encompasses film, theater, musicals and print. She designed the costumes for a reworking of the Stephen Schwartz musical Working with new songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda (Tony Award-winning creator of In The Heights). Other theatrical credits include Off Broadway's The Pride, directed by Joe Mantello (director of Wicked) and The Starry Messenger starring Matthew Broderick. Her notable film work includes Year of the Fish (Sundance 2007) and the award-winning short Sovereignty. She is currently collaborating with Mr. Strassberger on a new production of Don Giovanni for the Norwegian Opera as well as remounting their production of Le roi malgré lui for the Wexford Opera Festival in Ireland.

Victoria Vargas (Fenena)

Mezzo-soprano Victoria Vargas returns to Minnesota Opera, having appeared as Tisbe in Cinderella, Anna in Mary Stuart, Flora in La traviata, Nelly in Wuthering Heights, Alisa in Lucia di Lammermoor and Suzuki in Madame Butterfly. This season, she sings Fenena in Nabucco and Smeton in Anna Bolena. Regionally, she recently sang with the Duluth Festival Opera and a concert of Carmen excerpts with the Mankato Symphony.

Ms. Vargas has been a young artist at Sarasota Opera and Chautauqua Operas, where she covered the role of Mamma Lucia in Cavalleria rusticana. At Chautauqua, she won the opera company’s Guild Studio Artist Award and returned for a second season as an Apprentice Artist, performing Laura in Luisa Miller and the Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte.

Other credits include Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro for Ash Lawn Opera and Martina Arroyo's Prelude to Performance; the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, the title role in Carmen and Dorabella in Così fan tutte for Hillman Opera; Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music for Lyric Arts International; and Miss Todd in The Old Maid and the Thief for Fredonia Opera Theater. She recently completed her master of music degree from Manhattan School of Music, where she appeared as Euryclée in Fauré's Pénélope, and the Beggar and Mrs. Peachum in The Beggar's Opera.

Background Notes

Verdi’s beginnings had hardly been auspicious. In spite of his studies with Ferdinando Provesi and his involvement in the local philharmonic society, the composer’s application to the Milan Conservatory had been declined after he failed his piano entrance exam. He was resigned to study privately with a provincial teacher, Vincenzo Lavigna, and destined to become the maestro di cappella of the local cathedral. His first public performance at the Milanese Società Filarmonica, however, eventually led to an unofficial commission by its director, Pietro Massini, who proposed Temistocle Solera’s libretto for Oberto, conte di Bonifacio.

By 1838, Verdi had returned to Milan score in hand, and determined to become a self-made man, began to shop his new opera around town. With him came his new wife, Margherita, and their young son Icilio Romano. It was a risky venture. Already 25 years old, the composer could have been considered past his prime when compared to Mozart, Rossini and Donizetti. The Verdi family arrived amid the festivities of the visiting Emperor Ferdinand and Empress Maria Anna, for Lombardy was still part of the Austrian realm. At the same time, Nabucodonosor, a new ballet choreographed by Antonio Cortesi, was playing at the Teatro alla Scala. Times were hard – the couple was forced to borrow money from Margherita’s father and she had to pawn her jewels – but Verdi was fortunate to have several people working on his behalf. Massini managed to get Oberto a booking at La Scala as part of a benefit for the Pio Istituto Filarmonico. Impresario Bartolomeo Merelli had an impressive roster of singers at his disposal – tenor Napoleone Moriani, baritone Giorgio Ronconi and soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, then believed to be at the height of her career. Several rehearsals were held, but the usual vicissitudes of theatrical life and philanthropy postponed the premiere until the following autumn.

Oberto was a succès d’estime at best, not generating negative comments nor receiving any great admiration. Though Strepponi hadn’t sung in the belated production, she had seen the score and had spoken kindly of it. Merelli thought Verdi’s first effort worthy enough to offer a solid contract for three more operas composed at eight-month intervals. He also connected the young maestro to the House of Ricordi, which would publish his new work and maintain a life-long relationship through three generations.

Merelli offered several libretti to Verdi for a comic opera, and he chose the “least offensive,” Il finto Stanislao, later to be named Un giorno di regno. Perhaps the first bad omen of many to come, the libretto had already been set by another composer and had failed miserably. As the serious and sublime Romantic age began to blossom, comedy had become somewhat passé in Italy. Don Pasquale, composed three years later, is perhaps the only work to survive in repertory. Adding to that was the great personal tragedy Verdi would suffer – first his young son died, followed by Margherita. Composed under a dark cloud, Verdi’s second opera was destined (in his eyes) for failure, complicated further by a lack-luster performance by its principal singers. Merelli pulled the opera after only one performance with the given excuse of an ailing soprano.

The events following Un giorno are somewhat shrouded in legend, obfuscated by Verdi’s unreliable recollections set to ink many years after the fact. Even though the composer had supposedly given up on a career in music, Merelli held him to his contract and demanded another opera. At first, the composer considered Il proscritto, a libretto later set by Otto Nicolai (who had rejected Nabucco, a decision that virtually ruined his Italian career). It is said Merelli then forced Solera’s new libretto upon him, and when Verdi returned home that evening, he angrily threw the book across the room, where it magically opened on the pages with the text to the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, “Va, pensiero.” He then slowly composed the opera piece by piece.

Merelli, however, was not quick to produce Verdi’s latest opus. In 1841, he had already announced his Carnival season, which included two world premieres: Donizetti’s Maria Padilla and Alessandro Nini’s Odalisa, the local premiere of Pacini’s Saffo as well as restagings of Bellini’s La straniera and Donizetti’s Belisario. After some persuasion, he agreed to tack Nabucco on at the very end, but with repurposed scenery and costumes (likely from the ballet of 1838). Ronconi and Strepponi were engaged as the two principal characters, Nabucco and Abigaille.

Verdi was probably thrilled with Ronconi, but perhaps not as much with Strepponi. Though she had risen to the pinnacle of operatic fame, she was showing signs of vocal distress. From the age of 19, she had embarked on an aggressive career, in part to assist her mother and fatherless siblings, and in response to demanding and amorous agents. The backstage theatrical demimonde was viewed with disdain by the average god-fearing citizen, as the irregular life of evening employment led to unconventional love affairs. It is said that most impresarios had their way with many of the prima donnas, and Strepponi was no exception. Her agent, Camillo Cirelli, a 64-year-old married man, fathered her first illegitimate child. A daughter (father undetermined) arrived a mere 13 months later, right after a grueling performance of Il giuramento. There is rumored to be a third, and certainly a fourth child was born in February 1842 . The solutions for these unwanted pregnancies were few. Besides the stigma of being an unwed mother in 19th-century Catholic Italy, Strepponi was in no position to care for a child, given her itinerant life and her family’s dependence. She had to either find a family to care for them, or simply abandon the newborn in the Ospedale degli Innocenti. It doesn’t appear she made any attempts at reunion later in life.

The stress of her pregnancies and her ambitious performance schedule took its toll on her voice and reputation. Once the shining star of bel canto opera, having excelled in the roles of Norma, Lucia, Lucrezia Borgia, Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Giovanna (Anna Bolena), Nina in La pazza per amore (her signature mad scene a subject of portraiture) and Adelia (the score even dedicated to her), she had become the topic of derision by Donizetti by the time of Nabucco’s premiere. As it turned out, Strepponi barely survived the highly demanding role of Abigaille, which she would have to sing eight times before the run thankfully ended. She was not re-engaged for the fall revival, though she would sing in other Verdi operas until she finally retired in Paris. Nonetheless, she was immortalized in a painting with the score of Nabucco in her hands, and ironically, with camellias in her hair, the calling card of another Verdi heroine, the fallen traviata, Violetta. In spite of her shortcomings, she and Verdi would become friends, then lovers and finally spouses until her death in 1897.

The frenetic response to Nabucco’s bombastic, unrelenting score over those eight nights (with the onset of Lent, the season was at its end) encouraged Merelli to remount the opera in the fall, when it would receive a record-breaking 57 performances. Verdi’s star was on the rise, and the “boldly self-confident” composer would know a further triumph at La Scala with I Lombardi the following year. Nabucco would be staged in over 50 Italian opera houses within its first two years of existence. Verdi, the parvenu, was invited into the Italian intelligentsia and his fate was secured.

“Va, pensiero” became wildly popular among the people. Much has been made about the composer’s role in the Risorgimento, or the movement to reunite Italy in the 19th century. Throughout history, the concept of “Italy” had been more geographical than political as the last time the peninsula had been a unified country was during the Imperial Roman era. Since then, the region had been splintered by Dark Age barbarians, by Machiavellian princes of the Renaissance, and most recently, by the Austrian Hapsburgs to the north, and the Spanish Bourbons to the south, with Papal Rome in the midlands. During the Napoleonic invasions of 1798, the notion of a united Italy came back to the fore. The July Revolution of 1830 in Paris, abolishing the antiquated government of Charles x in favor of the more bourgeois Louis-Philippe, fostered the notion of rebellion, and ultimately futile uprisings occurred in Parma, Modena and the Papal States. By the 1840s, sedition was rife, a serious topic of conversation in secret societies, such as the Carbonari, and artistic salons, including that of Clara Maffei, a home frequented by Verdi. In 1848, another series of insurrections further destabilized Europe. Momentarily unsuccessful, they paved the way to partial unification in 1861. Venetia was gained in 1866, and another Napoleon led to total unity in 1870 when the French emperor pulled his troops out of Rome as he needed them to fight in the Franco-Prussian War.

Back in 1842, on the opening night of Nabucco, there were likely Austrian soldiers in the audience, a point clearly made in this production presented by Minnesota Opera. Did Verdi compose his early operas as political vehicles? There are two schools of thought. One commentator has noted that the chorus “Va, pensiero” most associated with the revolution was not repeated as previously believed – such an outrage against the Austrian prohibition of encores certainly would have been reported in the papers. Perhaps Verdi became associated with the Risorgimento after the fact, his themes and choruses quite naturally reflecting public sentiment. Still, Tomesticle Solera was undoubtedly a librettist of the revolution, and Verdi appeared to have republican leanings – he even named his children after characters from the Vittorio Alfieri Roman-themed play Virginia. A precedent for public demonstration had already been set by Mercadante in Caritea, regina di Spagna, during which the chorus sings “Chi per la patria muor, vissuto è assai” (He who dies for his country has lived enough). It has been noted that many Verdi operas of the 1840s contain numbers exactly for this purpose, and the composer wrote them as boldly as the censors would allow, hoping to provoke audience reaction. One can’t deny La battaglia di Legnano was blatantly written to inflame the desire for unification (some have detected La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, in its overture). It is certainly significant that Verdi turned to more introspective subjects after the failed insurgencies of 1848–49.

Nabucco (the shortened version of Nabucodonosor) is based on Nebuchadnezzar (r 605–562 b.c.), the fearless Assyrian ruler and one of Israel’s worst ancient villains, and comes through history from the Old Testament’s 2 Kings and the book of Daniel. Aside from being a bloodthirsty tyrant, he was a voracious builder, said to be responsible for the Gate of Ishtar, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and along with his father, the ziggurat Etemenanki, a reconstruction of the Tower of Babel. He is also responsible for sacking and destroying the first Temple of Solomon. The Babylonian Captivity is an important chapter in Jewish history, accented poignantly by the famed operatic chorus already cited, itself based on Psalm 137: “By the waters of Babylon we sat and wept ….”

Otherwise, the opera, the Bible and history part ways. The action of Nabucco is divided into tableaux rather than episodes, each with its own descriptive title. Solera aptly introduces each section with a biblical quotation from Jeremiah. However, as we progress into the third and fourth parts, his references become more creative as these passages are either wrongly attributed, or simply invented. Ultimately the plot was based on a four-act Parisian play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornu in which, other than Nabuchodonosor, the characters and plot are entirely fictitious. In a complex drama worthy of Eugène Scribe, Abigail begins with good intentions – she rescues Phénenna from Israeli captivity and saves Ismael’s life from the blade of an Assyrian soldier. She only turns evil when Nabuchodonosor shows preference for her younger sister, taking on a warrior princess persona as she is betrayed from every direction. In the play, she is the daughter of two slaves, bearing no relation to Nabuchodosonor. When the king is struck by lightning for his blasphemy, she snatches the parchment bearing her secret as well as the crown. The subsequent madness, confrontation between foster-father and daughter, and the prayer restoring the king’s sanity play out as in the opera, but Phénenna, having been executed, is restored to life by divine intervention, and Abigail, rather than dying of self-inflicted poison, is struck down by her surrogate father’s sword in retaliation for her treachery.

The affection between Phénenna and Ismael is also more prominent, and the play has an ongoing conflict with their love and Abigail’s jealousy as she determines to fight alternately for the crown and for Ismael’s heart. In the opera, that focus is diminished as their original love duet in Part Two was cut by Verdi and turned into a prayer by Zaccaria. The duet of note is in Part Three concerning Abigaille and Nabucco, another unrestrained moment that speaks to the heart of the drama, the struggle between father and daughter for control and recognition.

Nabuchodonosor’s dream and subsequent madness do find a corollary in the Bible. After interpreting the king’s dream of a great tree cut down, Daniel relays: “He was driven out from men, he ate grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like [an] eagle’s and his nails like birds,” a metamorphosis of king into beast. It is wonderful justice for the arrogant tyrant, who built a colossal graven image and burned those who refused to worship it in a fiery furnace. Remarkably, religious persecution – then and now – has consistently been made by oppressive political and religious figures with false idols and invented scripture. Far from being picture perfect, Nabucco’s story is a violent one, a geophysical force that resonates all the way from antiquity to revolution in Europe to the disquietude of the modern era.

print background notes

Giuseppe Verdi

b Le Roncole, October 9 or 10, 1813; d Milan, January 27, 1901

Giuseppe Verdi was born in Le Roncole, a small village in the Duchy of Parma. Contrary to the composer’s claim that he was of illiterate peasants, Carlo and Luigia Verdi both came from families of landowners and traders – together they ran a tavern and grocery store. As a youth Verdi’s natural fascination with music was enhanced by his father’s purchase of an old spinet piano. By the age of nine he was substituting as organist at the town church, a position he would later assume and hold for a number of years. Carlo Verdi’s contact with Antonio Barezzi, a wealthy merchant and music enthusiast from nearby Busseto, led to Giuseppe’s move to the larger town and to a more formalized music education. Lodging in his benefactor’s home, Verdi gave singing and piano lessons to Barezzi’s daughter, Margherita, who later became the composer’s first wife.

Encouraged by his benefactor, Verdi applied to the Milan Conservatory, his tuition to be funded in part by a scholarship for poor children and the balance to be paid by Barezzi. The Conservatory rejected his application because of his age and uneven piano technique, but Verdi remained in Milan under the tutorship of Vincenzo Livigna, a maestro concertatore at La Scala. After making a few useful contacts in Milan, writing a number of small compositions and some last-minute conducting substitutions, Verdi was offered a contract by La Scala for an opera, Rocester. It was never performed, nor does the score appear to exist. It is commonly believed that much of the music was incorporated into his first staged opera, Oberto. The score also may have been destroyed with the composer’s other juvenilia as Verdi had requested in his will.

Oberto achieved modest success, and Verdi was offered another commission from La Scala for a comedy. Unfortunately, by this time the composer had suffered great personal loss – in the space of two years his wife and two small children had all died. Verdi asked to be released from his contract, but La Scala’s impresario, Bartolomeo Merelli (probably with good intentions) insisted that he complete the score. Written under a dark cloud, Il regno di giorno failed in the theater, and Verdi withdrew from any further engagements. It was due to a chance meeting with Merelli (with a new libretto in tow) that led to his return to the stage.Nabucco was a huge success and catapulted Verdi’s career forward.

Italian theaters at this time were in constant need of new works, and as a result, competent composers were in demand and expected to compose at an astonishing rate. Both Rossini and Donizetti had set the standard and Verdi was required to adapt to their pace. These became his “anni di galera” (years as a “galley slave”) – between 1842 and 1853 he composed eleven new operas, often while experiencing regular bouts of ill-health. His style progressed from treating grandiose historical subjects (as was the custom of the day) to those involving more intimate, personal relationships. This transition is crowned by three of his most popular works: Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata.

Toward the end of the 1840s Verdi considered an early retirement, as his predecessor Rossini had done. He purchased land near Busseto once belonging to his ancestors and soon began to convert the farmhouse into a villa (Sant’Agata) for himself and his new companion, Giuseppina Strepponi, a retired soprano who had championed his early works (including Nabucco, for which she had sung the leading female role). Verdi had renewed their friendship a few years before; when Verdi and Strepponi were in Paris they openly lived together as a couple. After their return to Italy, however, this arrangement scandalized the denizens of Busseto, necessitating a move to the country.

As Verdi became more interested in farming and less involved in the frustrating politics of the theater, his pace slowed – only six new works were composed over the next 18 years. His style began to change as well, from the traditional “numbers opera” to a more free-flowing, dramatically truthful style. Some of his greatest pieces belong to this era (Simon Boccanegra, Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino, Don Carlos), which concluded with what most thought was his swan song, the spectacular grand opera Aida.

Following Aida, Verdi firmly stated he had retired for good. He was now devoted to Sant’ Agata, and to revising and remounting several earlier works, pausing briefly to write a powerful Requiem (1874) to commemorate the passing of Italian poet and patriot Alessandro Manzoni. Coaxed out of his retreat by a lifelong love of Shakespeare, the septuagenarian composer produced Otello and Falstaff to great acclaim.

Verdi’s final years were focused on two philanthropic projects, a hospital in the neighboring town of Villanova, and a rest home for aged and indigent musicians in Milan, the Casa di Riposo. Giuseppina, whom Verdi had legally married in 1859) died in 1897, and Verdi’s own passing several years later was an occasion of national mourning. One month after a small private funeral at the municipal cemetery, his remains were transferred to Milan and interred at the Casa di Riposo. Two hundred thousand people lined the streets as the “Va, pensiero” chorus from Nabucco was sung by an eight-hundred-person choir led by conductor Arturo Toscanini.

production photo © Scott Suchman for Washington National Opera

print composer biography

print catalogue of Verdi operas

An Interview with Director Thaddeus Strassberger

(by Michael Solomon, Washington National Opera)

Q. At the time Verdi wrote Nabucco, opera was a political and social force that blanketed the culture, much like the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards do today. Do you think opera has lost its cultural relevancy in this regard? How can it regain its prominence in popular culture?

In the 19th century, opera was often an intensely local phenomenon. Many new works were commissioned by Teatro alla Scala each season, and the public expected something new, spectacular and engaging every time they went to the opera house. There were favourite stars in both the opera and ballet companies that the audiences were eager to see in new roles – and as there was no recording technology at the time, of course, hearing and seeing an opera was by definition a social and participatory event. The ideas explored in each piece and the nuances of the performances were experienced by audiences collectively. There was plenty of time to interact socially as the performances were structured with more intermissions than is customary today, and often with an accompanying ballet or even another short opera in the same evening, meaning that you could arrive at the theater at 6 o’clock and still be there well after midnight. Opinions and observations were shared right away and the ovations or criticisms hurled at the stage with an immediacy that seems rarer today.  

In my productions, I strive to create an atmosphere conducive to starting a dialog with the public about the themes presented by the opera. A discussion is more interesting to me than a diatribe, and I think that is something that is sorely lacking in other forms of media at the moment. The popular perception that opera is elitist and exclusive is simply wrong – sporting events and concerts often cost much more than an opera ticket – and the best way to overcome it is by encouraging (and funding!) access to the opera house to wider audiences. Opera cannot be experienced in its full force anywhere but in a live performance. My first experience seeing an opera was through my elementary school music class working in conjunction with the local opera company to show a "behind the scenes" look at a dress rehearsal. If schools put as much time, money and effort into arts education as they do sports, I believe our country would be richer and more productive in my senses of those words.

Q. Nabucco was only Verdi’s third opera. What are the hallmarks of Verdi’s later classic style that are evident in this early work?

As a director and designer I find that his sense of scale throughout the arc of each opera to be really well thought out.  Trusting his ability to create a huge background of sound and spectacle to set a scene – and then to pull it right down to the equivalent of an intimately whispered soliloquy – pays dividends to the singing, orchestra and staging. The contours of the dynamics have to be reinforced and not flattened out to create their maximum effect, and this is as true with his earliest works as it is for Aïda or Otello, which he composed much later in his career.

Q. There are few operas in which the chorus plays such a centrally important role as in Nabucco. Verdi was even called “il padre del coro.” How does your production involve the chorus in new ways?

The characters in many of Verdi’s operas act in ways contrary to the social norms of their settings. The chorus serves as a living, breathing manifestation of the customs, habits, religious beliefs and rituals of the world that is frequently inhospitable and even downright hostile to the hopes and desires of the protagonists. This opera depicts two warring nations, religions and races, but Verdi and the librettist Solera give them some strikingly similar characteristics which I think is not a stylistic limitation, but rather an illustration that there must be more of a common humanity that unites them rather than focus on the superficial differences that seem to separate them.  

Q. There’s a lot of mythology surrounding Nabucco’s role in the history of the unification of Italy. What does your production say about this?

The history of nation-building and cultural identity is never clear-cut and linear whether in Europe, North America, Africa or the Middle East. But discussion in hindsight does bring a desire to structure a certain narrative. There is no specific documented evidence that the opera’s ideas (or choruses!) actually sparked a revolution, but the seeds were certainly being sown by Verdi and his contemporaries, and not only in the streets and newspapers, but most definitely on the opera house stages as well. Certainly the power of music and the rebellious and defiant text of the "Va, pensiero" chorus suggests a poetic, if not historically accurate, association with Risorgimento, or Unification, movement that changed the political landscape in the decades throughout which Verdi was most prolific.

Q. How do you see the political issues of Nabucco, such as nation-building and identity politics, still playing out in the world today?

If human beings ever had any power to truly learn from our own mythology, history and literature – the Iliad, the Bible, Shakespeare, Verdi, Britten, etc. – I think we would have by now. The seemingly insatiable appetite for land, riches, sex, power and control knows no cultural or geographic boundaries. Vengeance and desire for retaliation against those who have wronged you are hallmarks of the reactions from both sides of the conflict in Nabucco; I fear Verdi and Solera were making candid observations of the world they saw around them and not offering a blueprint for a way forward.

Q. You’re also the set designer for this production – what can you tell us about the intricately painted set pieces?

A formative part of my training as an opera director and designer was spent at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala in 2000 and 2001. The theater there – as both a building and a company of artists – has existed largely unchanged since 1776 and of course has produced hundreds of world premieres including many of Verdi’s operas. Though taste and aesthetics both musically and visually have changed over the centuries, there is a certain level of craftsmanship that is always present onstage there. In order to capture the essence of Verdi’s world of the 1840s for this production, the scenery that I designed for this production needed to be painted in a very specific style. One of the scenic artists I chose studied for many years under the same person whom I had the honor of working with at La Scala, so already there was an aesthetic connection to our training and development. This ‘master teacher’ of course had studied with the chief scenic painter of the theater in the 1960s who had studied under his predecessor, and so on, etc. all the way back of course to Verdi’s time. This artisanal chain of knowledge allows for a stylistic continuity to be passed down from generation to generation. My fear is that some of this artisanal talent will be lost if it is not given enough opportunities to be practiced and honed, so I’m really eager to present this very-much-alive art form to an audience who may have never seen anything like it before.

print interview

Suggested Reading

Charles Osborne, The Complete Operas of Verdi, Da Capo Press, Inc.

Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, Verdi: A Biography, Oxford University Press

Derek Beales, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, Longman

Peter R. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration (The Old Testament Library), Westminister Press

Suggested Listening

Cappuccilli, Domingo, Nesterenko, Dimitrova, Terrani; Sinopoli                                                                                Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin (Deutsche Grammophon)

Manuguerra, Scotto, Luchetti, Obraztsova, Lloyd, Edwards, Collins; Muti                                                               Philharmonia Orchestra and Ambrosian Opera Chorus (EMI Classics)

Gobbi, Prevedi, Cava, Suliotis, Carral; Gardelli                                                                                          Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsoperncho (Decca)

Suggested Viewing

Nucci, Ribeiro, Zanellato, Theodossiou, Chiuri; Mariotti
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma (Unitel Classica)
 
Bruson, Dimitrova, Burchuladze, Becaria, Pierotti; Muti
Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala (Kultur)

Nucci, Guleghina, Prestia, Dvorsky, Domashenko, Simic; Luisi
Chor und Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper (TDK DVD Video)

print bibliography