Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi 

What better guarantee of success than an inflamed patriotic chorus at the height of the Risorgimento? The real Nabucco triumph was not solely due to the quality of the score but, above all, how Verdi still in his anni di galera  (galley years) was able to translate the yearning for freedom and autonomy of his countrymen. In the opera, the Hebrew slaves subdued by the Assyrians, lament their fate on the banks of the Euphrates and long for their lost homeland while singing Va, pensiero, a doleful song that skillfully expressed the Italian revolt against the Austrian oppression. After the failures of Oberto and Un Giorno di Regno, Verdi’s first two operas, Nabucco pointed the first of his forthcoming successes. Two other happy facts signalled forever the composer’s life: Rossini highly praised Nabucco and Verdi met Giuseppina Strepponi whose vocal demands in the role of ‘Abigaille’ cut short her career and became Verdi’s faithful companion. Temistocle Solera’s libretto had all the ingredients for a perfect Holllywood epic to ensure a big success: jealousy, intrigue, poison, slaves and vengeful gods. Nabucco premiered with the same clamorous success at La Scala in 1842, the year Glinka also composed Russland and Ludmilla, general anesthetic was used for a chirurgical intervention, Constanze Mozart died, and in Portugal Costa Cabral led a revolt in order to restore the Constitutional Charter.

Conductor | Antonio Pirolli

Director | André Heller-Lopes

Set designer | Renato Theobaldo

Costumes | Marcelo Marques

Light design | Fabio Retti

Nabucco | Àngel Òdena

Abigaille | Elisabete Matos

Zaccaria | Simon Lim

Fenena | Maria Luísa de Freitas

Ismael | Carlos Cardoso

Anna | Carla Simões

Sacerdote | André Henriques

Abdallo | Pedro Rodrigues

Coro do Teatro Nacional de São Carlos
Principal Conductor | Giovanni Andreoli

Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa
Principal Conductor | Joana Carneiro

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Lyrical play in 4 parts
Libreto by Temistocle Solera

Photo credits | Paulo Lacerda