Nabucco

The boys and I recently headed to the Met Opera's "live" (via telecast) production of Verdi's Nabucco. The New York Times calls it a "biblical potboiler of religious wars and forbidden love." I found it beautiful (especially in staging, lighting, scenery, and orchestration), age-appropriate for children, and captivating even for its close-to-three-hours runtime. The boys' favorite part was the lightning smite by the Hebrew God when King Nebuchadnezzar (played by Placido Domingo) declares himself a deity. After technic lighting tricks and then a beat of total darkness, the scene is reddened, players are debilitated, and only Nabucco remains to repent of his audacious sacrilege.

My favorite part was the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves. I'm sure it's a Nabucco standard, but after the chorus's "Va Pensiero," the conductor James Levine mouthed to the first-chair violin, "Again?" And so the orchestra and chorus reprised the operatic anthem of religious patriotism. I could have heard it even a third time it was so stirring. During Wartburg Meistersingers, Drake, and Iowa All-State music camps, "Va Pensiero" was a must-sing performance. I still hum the tune today even after twenty years. To see it and hear it in full context helps to make this anthem a nostalgic, poignant, and haunting lament for a lost homeland or a lost time.

I also was won over by the amazing Ukrainian soprano who played Abigaille. I have to quote Zachary Woolfe from the NYT again mostly because of the quote's spot-on awesomeness: "The smoldering, deliciously wild-toned soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska attacks the ferocious music for Abigaille, the Babylonian slave turned queen, as if she's scaling a rock face with an ice ax." I think deep down we all go to opera to hear the rare and superhuman vocal range of the diva soprano. Monastyrska has a clear powerful sound that suggests authority and gravitas; in the opera world, she is billed as a spinto soprano for her ability to sing high notes with ease while also pushing for even more sound and crescendo for dramatic climax. Overall, it was a well-spent cold day out of the house. After the opera ended and we were walking back to our car, James mentioned that we should go to "the city" more often. We all felt transported somewhere bigger and grander which really is the point and effect of opera after all...