Good morning good noon good afternoon good evening good night. It is your Aulinda here again to bring you the new episode of Opera Wheres.
Of course it is not about the magic flute. NO MORE CHILD STORY HERE. As a 14 years old cocky little child, I’m jeer with those wonderland stories okay? My definition of the magic flute is just a bunch of random animals dancing and singing. Satisfied the needs of the parents taking pictures of their child with the iconic Met chandelier. Well, I rather play my flute at home.
Okay that’s enough for the Magic Flute, I’m sorry if I offended those magic flute lovers. But whatever, just saying that the magic flute is not my piece of cake right now. At least right now. But I still encourage you to go for the magic flute because it is so iconic and still, an excellent opera. Just like Handel’s Messiah for New York Philharmonic and the Nutcracker for NYC ballet, it is one of the must-watch as a new yorker with no doubt. But if you haven’t booked a ticket yet, there are the last two performances tomorrow but there are only 4-5 tickets left until…it is 1:42 am on december 30th. I suppose it will sell out when this podcast is out. So, all the magic flute fans, see you next year.
Alright, no more magic flute and mozart related conversations. Let’s go back to our topic. What a nice day, December 29th, 2 days until the new year if I didn’t make any calculation errors. Nothing bad about paying that $370 to sit at N 109 and being an audience for Nabucco, or Nabucodonosor without any abbreviation besides I’m shortsighted, i mean, i do lacking foresight but here meaning that I can’t see objects that clearly and very unfortunately I don’t have glasses so I do have difficulties identifying about what’s happening in the stage precisely.
Bad news and an awakened moment for me, when I was purchasing the ticket, the staff at the box office asked multiple times if I wanted to purchase the ticket for Nabuccodonosor, and I was like “what the hell are you talking about… I don’t speak italino! Io sono cinese. By the way, it means I’m Chinese in english. And soon after I got my ticket, I realized oh damn, he was talking about Nabucco but just in its original name. I’m sorry. When you constantly sleep less than 5 hours and use coffee to maintain basic homeostasis, that’s what happens, another life lesson, don’t be like me.
However, Nabucco is truly a hit whether 2 centuries ago during its 1842 premier or even just right now. We all love this story and the composition. It is truly a masterpiece that lives through times. Masterpieces don't wear out with time, they only get polished to perfection and become a diamond in the rough of history. That's my thoughts on Nabucco.
Let’s pull back to the history of Nabuccodonosor. The deaths of his wife Margherita, who’s initially his student and their two children Virginia and Icilio. Combine with the oppositions his second opera —-- Un giorno di regno, a two acts Opera Buffa (Comic Opera) recived. Nabucco was composed in a really painful period of Verdi, but all great work starts with an unexpected beginning. Verdi doesn’t wanna work on Nabucco but he randomly saw the pages with the libretto for the now-day-most-famous-aria—-- Va, pensiero (Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves). He was so attracted by that and instantly realize that Nabucco is the work for him. But because he was in such a pain, torture too much by but in such a love with the libretto. He gave up reading the libretto not one time, not two times, but three times. According to Verdi himself, “I could not sleep: I got up and read the libretto, not once, not twice, but three times, so that in the morning, you might say, I knew Solera’s whole libretto from memory.” I mean, when your life is a mess, that’s how your career can add on to that hurt. But here comes the great aspect of a genius, Verdi forced himself to work…a note by a note, a measure by a measure, a phrase by a phrase, and eventually, the whole opera. Wow, I should learn that spirit and stop procrastinating.
His painful work does pay-off. From my Asian perspective, I would like to say that sometimes people do work the best under stress and pain, but I just won’t encourage you to practice that either yourself or force someone to work under it. So Nabucco did gained instance success, lets use some number to prove that, Nabucco performed 67 times in its debut year of 1842. To clarify, that Nabucco was first performanced in March 9th, 1842, which means that in the 9 months left in 1842, there are an average of about 7 and a half times Nabucco was performanced every month.
The other reason why Nabucco was so famous, is all because that aria we talked about before—-Va, pensiero. If something can even impress and touch the composer himself, people’ll and must acknowledge the greatnesses of it. The great chorus is mind-blowing, I was literally immersed in it, a Bravo for met chorus and Callegari. Beside the musical aspect, another thing is that people related the story of Nabucco to what they were enduring by the time. The sympathy Verdi demonstrated to the Risorgimento movement in his compositions. His work contributed to the unification of Italy. Va, pensiero is the emotional outlet for the artistical italianos during that political-chaos period.
Let’s come back to the story of Nabucco, the story is a little bit complex for any abbreviation, but to keep it simple, it is about how the King, Nabucco is very intolerance of Israelites but his daughter, Fenena converts to Judaism, the king gets mad and truly hits by that. That’s the moment of failure as a father when your daughter betrays you, so the king went a little bit crazy and off, stating that HE IS THE GOD, and every should worship him. Well…I mean, never a smart choice, so the real god did punished him by thundering on him. His elderly daughter, Abigaille (which is not really his biological daughter, but the daughter of enslaves) took his position. Sentencing Fenena and all the Israelites to death, Nabucco can’t accept that, so he starts to worship to the god of Hebrew, and very magically, that works, he saves all of the Israelites and his lovely daughter Fenena. And Nabucco became the servant of God and king of kings. Such a happy ending but bad for Abigaille, RIP
I found it very interesting where at the end everyone converts to Judaism, but somehow Verdi doesn’t believe in any religions. He also composed the Requiem in his later which was used for the Catholic funeral mass. I think religion to him doesn’t weigh that much, it serves as the literature use.
Back to the opera singers, it is the tenor, SeokJong Baek’s met debut today, he did a fantastical job. I'm almost immersed in his tenor voice, the thickness and the breadth of his voice perfectly displayed the role of Ismaele. That character seems just build for him in natural. What a great job, his voice is just such a comfort, it is like the your sweet home in a 40 degrees day. Another weird little metaphor. Please go support him, except from Nabucco, he’s also playing Càlaf in Turandot this season. Another of Puccini’s masterpiece that I can’t wait to see. (Even though Puccini didn’t finished it himself before he died). SeokJong Baek will definitely be the next Internationally renowned starring tenor.
As I said, Nabucco was punished by the god, the lighting went straight to him after the aria "Non son più re, son dio" / "I am no longer King! I am God!". That was a little bit hilarious to me somehow because at the last moment you are stating that you are the god and immediately got punished. But whatever, it surprised me that the king was struck by lightning and still had a strong and steady voice. That’s probably one of the reasons why he’s the king I guess. Bravo for Gagnidze.
Talking about the lighting scene, if you haven’t, I encourage you to take a look at the header image met chose for Nabucco, you can see the whole stage design including the centered throne. Do you think we can see the throne as the shape of the cross? Very interesting. And also soon after the lighting, the stage, Nabucco and Israelites start glowing a red light, I guess that represents blood but it is really cool. Talks about the stage design, it is a double-sided, spinning/rotating layered structure. One side depicts Jerusalem and the other side for Babylon. Creative, useful, smart, and light.
To be honest, the performance was great, excellent, but I’m just a little bit annoyed by the caliber of the audience. I heard phone alarms and text messages from everywhere, all time. And in Act 3 and 4, there’s even the sound of a little kid crying…Wow, what can I say. I don’t and shouldn’t blame the person who coughs because that’s a usual human thing, we all got sick, it shouldn’t be something that you accuse someone for. Another fun little thing that’s in my mind is that we got to see fires a lot in Nabucco, and, they are all real fires. So the thing I immediately thought about is the Co2 or Carbon dioxide level in the theater.
My favorite figure from Nabucco is actually Abigaille, you can see all of her struggles. She was swinging between her identities as the daughter of the king and as the daughter of enslaves. The realization of oh, i’m not from the loyal family is a hit for the not yet fully independent and strong in spirit Abigaille. So we can see all of the wrong decisions she made, the depravity of her dignity. I don’t think she loves Ismaele, by the way he’s the one who fell in love with Fenena. It is also the same logic why Abigaille crowded herself. Because the moment she realized she’s the child of enslaves, she thought she lost everything. And now she just wants to prove to herself that there actually are things that belong to her, whether it is love or power, whether by pity or force. She’s a solid figure here. It is the amount of pain Monastyrska demonstarts when she was singing Abigaille’s solo aria that aria "Anch'io dischiuso un giorno" / "I too once opened my heart to happiness". Verdi and Solera didn’t leave Abigaille a stereotypical villainous role but built a solid figure that we can look through and discover more.
There are still seven more Nabuccos going on at the met til January 26th, if you haven’t please just go and support the brilliant singers and the magnificent composition. Thank you so much for listening, have a nice day, happy new year, and if any questions or concerns please just email aulindatang@gmail.com. Again, thank you so much and, see you in my next episode.