Patrick Bade
Verdi’s Nabucco: A Risorgimento Opera

Patrick Bade - Verdi’s Nabucco: A Risorgimento Opera

- Right, well before I get started, I’ll just say for those Verdi lovers, that the Verdi Festival this year in his native Parma, that will be in October, they’re presenting La forza del destino, Il trovatore and Simon Boccanegra, and The Recreance, a fantastic programme, I’ll be leading a group there for Kirker Holidays, trips to do. Parma is incredible, glorious music by Verdi, the best Italian food you will have ever had in your life, you don’t know what pasta can be like ‘til you’ve eaten it in Parma, wonderful art, architecture, and so on. And they also asked me to just put in a word for our trips to Vienna in June, which will include Don Giovanni, and there’s Munich in August. Anyway, here is the great man Verdi, and he said, “With Nabucco, my artistic career can be said to have begun.” It was his great breakthrough opera, it was the first huge success, it was the first of his operas that spread around the world, it wasn’t the first opera, that was an opera called Oberto, and that was presented at the Scala in 1839, and it was a modest success, he seemed to be on his way, but his next opera the following year 1840, Un giorno di regno was a disastrous flop, why? We don’t really know, it’s a very attractive opera, I’ve seen it a couple of times, of course Milan, and Scala, Scala is a notorious snake pit, it always has been notorious for vicious feuds and intrigues. So, this disaster, it really knocked him back, and even worse, over a short period of time, his wife died, and his two children died, and you can imagine, he was just devastated, and colossally discouraged, and he decided to give up his ambition to be a composer, and just go back to live a quiet life in his native Parma.

And about this time, he was walking down the street in Milan, and the director of the opera house bumped into him, and he said, “Look, I’ve got this libretto that I would like you to consider setting.” It was a libretto for Nabucco, story of Nebuchadnezzar from the Bible. And they had offered it to the German composer Otto Nicolai, and quite sensibly, he declined it, I can’t imagine what Nabucco by him would’ve sounded like, he’s a very delightful composer, lighthearted composer, most famous for The Merry Wives of Windsor, but this text, which has been described as, “Rage, invective, bloodshed and murder.” Was not for him, but it fitted Verdi like a glove. Now, initially he said, “No, no. I’ve given up any ambition to be an opera composer, I don’t want to do it.” But the director insisted, and he thrust it into Verdi’s pocket, and according to Verdi, I mean, how accurate this is, I don’t know. He went home, and he threw the libretto on the floor in disgust, and it opened on this text, which is the text of the famous chorus of the Hebrew slaves. And this of course became the great hit of the opera, it became the anthem of the Risorgimento, Risorgimento, this movement to create a unified and independent Italy, and it’s a lament, it’s a very beautiful lament, it’s a lament of the dispossessed people, yeah of course it’s the Jewish people in the Bible, but the Italians strongly identified with them. And he was so moved by this text that the inspiration came to him immediately, and he accepted the commission for the opera.

Now, so this the period of Risorgimento, where much of Italy is ruled by foreigners, we’ve got the Bourbons in the South, I don’t know whether you’d call a pope a foreigner, but those Papal States in the middle, and up at the top, most of Northern Italy was ruled by the Austrians, so you really just got Savoy as a substantial, independent Italian kingdom. So, the hope was that Italy could get rid of the Bourbons, get rid of the Austrians, restrict the power of the pope and unite Italy under the king of Piedmont-Savoy, who was called Victor Emmanuel. So, Verdi became very associated with this movement, and all over Italy were graffiti, “Viva Verdi! Viva Long Live Verdi!” That Verdi could be an acronym for “Vittorio Emanuele Re d'Italia”, Victor Emanuel, King of Italy. The man who wrote the libretto, was a man called Temistocle Solera, and he wrote librettist for several other Verdi operas, including I Lombardi, Giovanna d'Arco and Attila. He was a passionate political activist, he was actually thrown into prison at one point. So, when he wrote this great hymn, this lament of the dispossessed people, he really knew what he was doing, this was not accidental. Strangely, you might think, that the opera was dedicated to Adelaide of Austria, you think, “Well, what?” Both the librettist, and the composer are so passionately anxious to rid Italy of Austrian domination, but of course Adelaide D'Austria was the wife of Victor Emmanuel, so it was quite a clever way of giving a dedication, which seemed to be quite innocuous, but also hinted at the desire for a unified Italy.

Verdi was very lucky with singers he had for his premier, that was always very, very important with the success, and failure of his operas, depended very much on the singers that he had, but two in particular, the baritone Giorgio Ronconi, who you see on the left-hand side, he was a mature singer, he was considered to be a great singing actor, which is what you want for the role of Nebuchadnezzar, a very powerful stage presence. And the soprano who sang the very dramatic and exciting role of Abigaille, this was Giuseppina Strepponi, who you see in the middle, who became Verdi’s longterm mistress and eventually, she became his second wife, and by, and large I think it was a happy relationship, and a happy marriage, although they had no children together, and it’s often said that she sacrificed her voice for Verdi, 'cause as we shall see, the role of Abigaille is a real voice-killer, it’s an extremely, extremely demanding role, and no singer is recommended to sing it too often, she sang it everywhere for a short time, and completely wrecked her voice, the first of several singers to do so. Now, here we are inside La Scala, and I’m going to play… There’s a brief overture, rather a conventional one, the conventional overture of many 19th century operas consist of potpourri of melodies from the opera, the idea of that is of course that they should be in the minds of the listeners, and when the tunes come up in the opera, they were already sound a bit familiar, and you will recognise in this potpourri of tunes of course, the very famous tune of the chorus, of the Hebrew slaves. Now, the curtain raises on to show that Solomon’s Temple is Jerusalem, Jerusalem is being besieged by the Babylonians, and as you can see, at the top we have a chorus of Hebrew, Levites and Virgins, who are extremely agitated, it’s a sort of you know, mariable Ukraine moment, desperate resistance, overwhelming force.

And the first of the three main-characters we meet is the high-priest Zaccaria, of course traditionally in Italian operas, high-priests are sung by what is called a basso cantante, a basso cantante must have a very deep, dark, full voice, but it has to be noble, and it has to be smooth. So, here we have Zaccaria calling upon God to help the Jews to defeat the Assyrians. The next to arrive is Abigaille, who is believed to be the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, and she arrives brandishing a sword, and uttering terrible threats, and she has the hots for Ishmael, the Jewish hero, and she really propositions him straight away, she says, “Well, if you will love me, I will have the Jewish people spared, and if you don’t love me, I’ll have them all murdered.” And it’s not really a particularly successful chat-up line with him, while he’s in love with her sister, or the woman who thinks she’s her sister, as we shall discover called Fenena. So, Abigaille is… Well, just first of all, let me say something about the image on the screen, 'cause it tells you quite a lot about performance practise in the 19th century. One of the great features of Verdi operas are the ensembles, the trios, the cortets, the quintets and the sextets, where very often the action of the opera will be paused, and in the 19th century, directors won’t allow it anymore, the singers for these great ensembles, they would just move to the front of the stage, and they would sing competitively, they’d try and sing each other into the orchestra. For me, these are often the most thrilling moments, especially in the early operas of Verdi, where you have each singer expressing their own private emotion, different emotions.

The great writer Victor Hugo said he really envied Verdi, that he was able to do this, 'cause obviously in the play, you can’t have four people standing at the front of the stage and talking you know, at the top of their lungs, because you wouldn’t hear anybody, but you can in music, because they’ve got different vocal lines. So, this starts off as a solo for Abigaille, and this is, we’re going to hear a Greek singer called Elena Souliotis, she had a very brilliant, but I’m afraid very brief career, it really only lasted for about five years, and initially she was hailed as the new Callas, but this was a very dangerous model for her to follow, and she had a fantastic success, particularly in this role, and she’s very exciting as you’ll hear, and everybody wanted to hear Souliotis in this role, and she foolishly sang it all over Europe for about five years, after which she had completely shredded her voice, she tried to have a comeback, actually as a Wagner singer, I think reckoning, “Well, if you’ve shredded your voice, that’s what you should land up singing.” But here, you will hear her at her peak, and as she comes in she says, A wonderful, menacing, chesty sound, but of course this is one of the things of course that did her voice in, this is not a very healthy way to produce your voice, however exciting it is. And then she issues terrible threats towards her sister… She’s got the hots for Ishmael, and so has her sister, and she, as I said she issues terrible threats, “Your tomb will be your bridal couch.” She says. And then she turns to Ishmael, and she kind of melts, as you can see she says, “I loved you.” And she says that he can save his people if he will return her love.

And then, one by one, the other characters come in, Ishmael comes in for Elena, and it builds up into one of these great Verdi ensembles, and originally as I said, they will all move towards the front of the stage, and they would’ve faced the audience, they wouldn’t have interacted with one another, they’re all be projecting into the audience. And watch out when she talks about thunderbolts. Thunderbolts of coloratura there. And this is where she turns to Ishmael, and melts when she looks at him. Then, Nabucco himself arrives, and he’s also, you might think, “Ooh, he’s definitely his daughters father, 'cause he’s also breathing fire and brimstone, and terrible menaces, and threatening destruction of the temple, and the Jewish people, and might be able to see just over here on the right-hand side, Zaccaria then grabs Fenena, who is his favourite daughter, and puts a dagger to her throat, she’s been ceased by the Jews as a hostage, but Ishmael, who’s in love with her, ceases the dagger and rescues Fenena. And then the whole thing, this whole scene ends with a very exciting stretta, that’s a fast moving finale where everybody comes in, it’s in a major key in the score that the notation is "con gioia”, “with joy”, and it really sounds like a sort of knees up mother brown.

I must say, in my early foolish days when I didn’t really appreciate Verdi and I was totally besotted with Wagner, I used to find these moments in the early Verdi operas rather silly, because everything is going at such a speed, as I said it’s in a major key, and I remember an Italian friend explained to me, “No, you really missed the point, that the reason it’s at this kind of speed is because Verdi is conveying the excitement of the moment, in these desperate exciting moments of course, you have this increased heartbeat.” And that’s what we’re hearing here in the music, it’s the heightened heartbeat. In the next act, we find ourselves in the royal palace in Babylon, and we encounter Abigaille alone, and she has just made a shocking discovery, she’s come across a document that proves that she’s not the royal princess, she is not the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, she’s actually the descendant of Jewish slaves, and she expresses her rage, her anger, her hatred for everybody including herself, she curses everybody, she curses herself. I mean you could, I hesitate to use this very controversial phrase, I’m always having discussions about it with Trudy, but you could say that Abigaille is the original self-hating Jew, I always feel it’s one of those, that the phrase “self-hating Jew” is a phrase that’s often abused or used wrongly, but she really is somebody who hates the fact that she is of Jewish-origin. Now, her aria, it’s a very conventional Italian aria form, it’s in three parts, so you start off with the dramatic recitative, you have a central slow-moving lyrical section, and then it ends with a cabaletta, that’s a showy fast-moving section. And we’re going to once again hear Souliotis, this Greek soprano.

There are two recordings that you might find of her, one is a commercial one with Tito Gobbi, and it’s very recommendable, and excellent, but there is also a live-performance, and as so often the live-performance I think has the edge on the commercial one, the studio one, especially as far as Souliotis is concerned. So, she has this very dramatic recitative, which puts terrible pressure actually, this is where you can really hear the damage that can be done to a soprano’s voice by letting rip, Verdi’s written it so that she has these leaps and huge plunges, leaps up to high notes, plunges right down into the deep chest register, and as I said, this is not a very good thing really for the longterm health of her vocal cords, but Souliotis is just socially thrilling, she’s absolutely uninhibited, she really gives it her all. Very exciting, but my throat aches in sympathy for her. So, we’re going to change sopranos now for the middle section, this is a singer who was briefly a serious rival to Callas, this is Anita Cerquetti, as I said, she had a very brief career, and only made a few recordings for Decca, and they always used this terrible picture of her. I once met somebody who worked for Decca and I said, “Why do you always use that awful picture of Anita Cerquetti?”

And he said, “Well, we only have one other picture, and it’s worse. So, this is what we’ve got.” But it’s a most beautiful voice, I think it’s one of the most beautiful Italian dramatic soprano voices, I put it really right up there with Rosa Ponselle, it’s so luscious, and it’s so smooth, and it sounds so healthy, it sounds like a singer who should’ve had a very long career, but her brief moment of great fame was when she replaced Maria Callas in 1958, Callas had dropped out of a performance of Norma halfway through, it was a gala performance for the president of Italy, and it was a huge, huge, massive scandal, it really damaged Callas’ reputation. And Cerquetti took over, and she won great vivations, and it all seemed like she was really set to go, and then mysteriously, her voice started to come apart at the seams, and to the end of her life, she seriously believed that her vocal problems had been caused by a curse from Maria Callas, her vocal problems I think were probably more psychological than anything else, but anyway, you’ll hear in this beautiful, lyrical central section, what an unbelievably gorgeous voice this was. And we’ll move onto the Cabaletta, the fast-moving final section, which has lots of showy coloratura, coloratura, this elaborate ornamentation of the vocal line can be used in so many different ways, it can be pretty and frilly, and lacy as in say The Bell Song from Lakme, it can express madness as in, and here it’s used by Verdi to express rage, and hatred. Here we’re going to hear for this final section, the Bulgarian soprano Ghena Dimitrova.

Now, the high-priest gets his big, beautiful aria, and here this time it’s a much more melodious, and lyrical aria than the first one that I played you, and for this I’ve chosen the voice that for me is the most beautiful Italian base voice ever on record, this is Ezio Pinza, I know at the end, lots of people are going to be telling me, “Yes, yes. Yes, I heard him in South Pacific.” But actually, this is a late recording, so it is recorded around the time that he was performing in South Pacific on Broadway, they did such a glorious, noble sound, so perfect for this aria. aria starts off with a very beautiful introduction with no less than six solo cellos, and then it again begins with a recitative of noble declamation, Pinza’s voice has such substance, such weight, such inherent nobility, and then when it gets down to the words, with psalms, it’s really, the voice just melts you with it’s lyrical beauty. Now, the Jews turn on Ishmael, and curse him because he saved the life of Fenena, and then he reveals that she is actually already secretly converted to Judaism. So, they say, “Well, oh well. That’s all right then.” Abigaille comes storming in again, with the fake news that Nabucco is dead and she claims the throne for herself, but this doesn’t last long, because Nabucco arrives perfectly alive and well, and he’s also breathing fire, and brimstone, and he orders everybody to fall down, and he declares that he is God, and he declares that everybody should fall down, and worship him. Here is the arrival of Nabucco in the form of that very great actor, singer, baritone, Tito Gobbi. When he declares himself to be God, he himself is struck down by a thunderbolt, and afflicted with madness.

Again, this is a wonderful opportunity for a singer like Tito Gobbi, it’s right up there with the most dramatic scenes in Rigoletto, wonderful opportunity for some real carpet-chewing on the part of the principal baritone. We’re going to move on at some speed, because we’re going to run out of time, but then we have a scene, a very powerful scene between Nabucco and his supposed daughter Abigaille, and it’s… Of course it’s a truism of Verdi that his greatest duet really throughout his entire career from beginning to end tend to be between parent and child, they don’t necessarily have to be father/son, father/daughter, mother/son or whatever, but intergenerational duets, so the really great duets with Verdi, he’s not really big on love duets. But this is a duet in which of course Abigaille she reveals her true colours of hatred and sadism, and she is going to order the death of her supposed sister, Fenena, and Nabucco begs mercy, and she spurns him. Next, we come this highlight of the opera, this famous chorus of the Hebrew slaves, which I imagine is very familiar to most of you. Now, I’m really sorry to cut that off, but I’m going to actually go through to the final scene, as we’re running out of time.

Nabucco sees the error of his ways and he prays to God for forgiveness, and his reason is restored, and he turns up, and he orders the destruction of the great heathen idol, but in fact, nobody needs to go and destroy it, ‘cause it very conveniently self-destructs, rather like a Banksy sculpture. And it all looks like it’s going to end well, but now it’s Abigaille… I’m going to go through to the final scene, she gets the final word, and in a way I think she’s the most interesting character in this opera, and she is dying, and she is sorry for her past sins, and she begs for forgiveness, and dies. And what really strikes me about this scene is how I mean, this is of course a story taken from the Jewish Bible, but the setting of the scene, the libretto and Verdi’s treatment of it, it’s very Catholic, so a very big thing of course in Catholicism, there is repentance and redemption, and this is a scene of repentance, and redemption. And as she dies, we get these fluttering flutes, rather like the death of Gilda in Rigoletto that tell us, “Yes, yes. God has forgiven her.” And her soul is going to flutter up to heaven. Good, well let’s see what…

Q&A and Comments:

“A great Parmesan cheese of course in Parma.” But so many things are wonderful to eat in Parma. Dates of the Parma Festival are 5th to 11th of October, it should be gorgeous, autumnal weather. I’ll put the details of the tours maybe in my next handout for you.

“A few minor points, Toscanini was from Parma.” He was, that’s another thing we do of course, we go to his house, which is absolutely fascinating, I love going to Toscanini’s house in Parma. Verdi. Roncole yes, and Busetto, which is of course where we go to all these places, we go to his birth place at Roncole, and we go to Busseto, which is the nearest little town where there is the Verdi theatre.

Somebody else… Somebody can’t hear, oh dear.

“Asuria and Austria.” I’m not sure about that.

“Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the Babylonians, not the Asyrians, although he does talk about the Asyrians, as well as Babylonians in the score.” Rose, thank you very much.

“I don’t know why she’s not in love with Isaac.” I don’t think it’s the same Ishmael though, is it? Not the one of you know, the famous Abraham’s children.

Herbert said he didn’t know that Pinza sang Zaccaria. I think he sang all those great voices, and of course he’s wonderful in Simon Boccanegra. Thank you so much, nice comments.

“Nabucco at Holland Arc.” Yes. I mean, you know it’s become a bit of a cliche, I kind of resent it when people use concentration camps and the holocaust in opera productions, although I can see there’s more logic for it here, but I feel that it’s almost an abuse and somehow it shouldn’t be exploited in that way, but we can all have our views about this. Thank you very much.

Yes, the tenor has rather a weedy role in Nabucco, that is true, it’s the baritone, the main soprano, and the base that get the meat in that opera.

“Following your lecture…” I think I did talk about Risorgimento, Italian unification, that is you know, it’s the first of several operas by Verdi, which are thought to connect with the Risorgimento.

“Details to…” Right, yes let me see, I’ll have to write that down. Myraauren235gmail, I will email you.

And I think I’m getting to the end of the questions, am I? Thank you so much, I’m glad you enjoyed it.

It will be on the handout, her name is Souliotis, Elena Souliotis, she didn’t make very many records.

“There is a famous…”

And I’ll put all these details on my next handout, and thank you all, and very happy Passover/Easter, everything to all of you… I’m actually going to see you again tomorrow, because I’m doing a session on Fidelio tomorrow, another very great opera.

Thanks everybody, bye-bye.