The 2025 production of Verdi’s Nabucco recorded in the Arena di Verona is nothing if not spectacular; visually and vocally. One might ask though if it’s anything other than spectacular. Stefano Poda, who was responsible for designs and direction, makes some pretty bold claims in his Notes; “a symbolically charged reflection on power, spirituality and human identity”, “contrasting dualities: Babylonians and Hebrews, rationality and spirituality, progress and faith”, “the possibility of inner transformation and human reconciliation”. That’s a lot of freight for Nabucco to carry and I’m not sure it does but the visuals are certainly spectacular.
It starts with the Babylonians in spacesuits and the Hebrews in stylized rags. We get extras in fencing masks doing an elaborate sword ballet, a large posse of dominatrixes, led by Anna Netrebko’s Abigaille, who seem straight from a 1970s schlock sci-fi movie; boots and leather corsets, fancy headdresses and whips. There’s some sort of space launch structure at the back of the stage and giant atom models. There are “light cages” and pod people and generally amazing lighting. Very large numbers are involved and half of the Arena’s huge space is used at times with extras all over the terraces behind the stage. There are some really spectacular “stage pictures” to enjoy. But, when all’s said and done, the plot is Nabucco and how much can you squeeze out of that?
Musically it’s very good too, though inevitably focussing more on the grand and dramatic than the more intimate side of the piece. Netrebko is really powerful as Abigaille; superb in her big confrontation with Nabucco, sung by Amartuvshin Enkhbat. And he’s a really idiomatic Verdi baritone, with power and beauty of tone. Christian Van Horn is boomingly majestic as Zaccaria. Francesca di Sauro is a sweet toned and rather touching Fenena well backed up by Galeano Salas as Ismaele. The huge chorus does the job and the orchestra sounds great. If conductor Pinchas Steinberg is indeed aiming for “grand” he succeeds admirably.
Tiziano Mancini directs for video and I like what he does. Obviously he has to focus mostly on the central action but he uses enough shots of the whole performance area to give a sense of what’s going on and even uses some drone shots that show just how vast the whole enterprise is. He’s backed up by the usual excellent Blu-ray sound (DTS-HD-MA and PCM stereo) sound and picture.
The booklet has the previously mentioned notes plus a synopsis and track listing. Subtitle options are Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Korean and Japanese.
There aren’t a lot of modern video recordings of Nabucco and the others I’ve seen are a bit dull. This one may not be the deepest opera production ever but it’s fun to watch and musically excellent.
Catalogue information: C Major 773504
