Ways of Thinking About Verdi's Nabucco

Not all lovers of classical music are opera lovers, and my wife and I are belong to the former category. However, we were in Prague, and we thought it was only appropriate to attend an opera there. The available opera happened to be Nabucco, so we went. The production was imaginative, the singers excellent, and the orchestra admirable. The opera house itself is a splendid building. We were surprised how much we enjoyed it. I was also struck by the many-layered perspectives from which it can be appreciated.

The program booklet that I purchased contained an informative essay about the opera by the dramaturge of opera house, Jitka Slavíková, much of which was devoted to the place of Nabucco in Verdi's career and oeuvre as well as to the place of Nabucco in the world of opera in the mid-nineteenth century. Sections of the booklet also dealt with the literary aspect of the libretto and its free treatment of biblical and historical sources. A musicologist and cultural historian could write a substantial monograph about the musical and theatrical aspects of Nabucco.

We were seated in a box with a charming young Czech couple and an equally charming, friendly Bulgarian high school girl, who aspires to be a professional flautist. In the box to our left was a formally dressed Asian couple who were reading about the opera on their tablets in Chinese or Japanese. I'm sure Western operas are performed in their part of the world, but hearing an opera in the city where Don Giovanni was premiered is somehow different. Operas are emblematic of Western high cultural aspirations. Every self-respecting city must have an opera house and an opera company, although the genre appeals only to a minority of the public. So that's a topic that wasn't covered in Slavíková's brief but learned essay.

The director of this production of Nabucco chose to costume the chorus in modern dress rather than in some sort of biblical or Babylonian costume. Rather, they were clearly modern Jews, costumed in dated dresses and suits, suggesting the Jews who were sent to the death camps. I imagine that Temistocle Solera, an ardent Italian patriot, in writing about the ancient Hebrews exiled to Babylonia was thinking about the plight of his countrymen, ruled by foreign powers and struggling to unify and gain sovereignty, and he couldn't have been thinking of Zionism. But the later, unforeseen historical context can't be ignored. Nor can the current historical context, when anti-Zionists deny the right of the State of Israel to exist at all, but ignored.

I thought about all the foregoing after being swept away by the beauty of the singing and the music of the orchestra.