Reviews 2003
Reviews 2003
✭✭✩✩✩
by Giuseppe Verdi, directed by Angelo Gobbati
Royal Opera Canada, Toronto Centre for the Arts, Toronto
November 27-December 6, 2003
Royal Opera Canada's Nabucco is the first fully staged production of Verdi's 1842 opera in Toronto. It's good to see such an obvious musical gap filled. It would be better if the production were more than a mediocre pageant in biblical costume.
Nabucco made Verdi famous and the Chorus of Hebrew Slaves "Va pensiero" became the unofficial anthem of the Italian nationalist movement. The destruction of Jerusalem in 587bc by Nebuchadnezzar ("Nabucco" in Italian) and subsequent exile of the Jews to Babylon could make a great opera, but the Verdi's librettist focusses more on a fictional story involving the attempt by Nabucco's bastard daughter Abigaille to wrest power from her father and a lover from her half-sister. To make us care about the rulers' problems rather than the people's suffering requires powerful, persuasive performances. This does not happen.
Principles Mauro Augustini (Nabucco), Kathleen McCalla (Abigaille) and Alessandro Verducci (the Hebrew High Priest) can all attain high decibel levels, but they almost totally lack subtlety of tone, phrasing or characterization. Augustini acts no differently after Nabucco has been struck by lightning and rendered insane than he did before. McCalla, said to be ill, is unsteady throughout. The one exception is Giovanni Gregnanin as Ismaele, the object of Abigaille's lust. He has a glorious tenor voice and is the only one to seem fully engaged with what he is singing.
Director Angelo Gobbati is concerned mostly with traffic control on stage and efforts to get the cast to emote meet with limited success. The chorus plays a large role but do not always blend well except in the magnificent a cappella hymn to Jehovah at the end of Act 4, when, at least for a few moments, everyone on stage seems to share and express the energy in Verdi's music.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2003-12-04.
Photo: Kathleen McCalla as Abigaille (seated on throne). ©2003 Royal Opera Canada.
2003-12-04
Nabucco