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Parma Verdi Festival 2008:  Nabucco: Soloists, Orchestra and Chorus Teatro Regio di Parma. Conductor. Michele Mariotti.  Teatro Valli de Reggio Emilia. 8.10.2008 (JMI)

New Production: Teatro Regio di Parma and Teatro Valli Reggio Emilia.

Director: Daniele Abbado
Sets and Costumes:  Luigi Perego
Lighting: Valerio Alfieri

Cast:

Nabucco: Anthony Michaels-Moore
Abigaille: Dimitra Theodossiou
Zaccaria. Carlo Colombara
Ismaele: Mickael Spadaccini
Fenena: Daniela Inamorati


This Nabucco is the fourth and last opera offered by this year’s Verdi Festival, taking place for the first time at the beautiful Teatro Valli in Parma’s neighbouring city of Reggio Emilia.

As a collaboration between Parma and Reggio Emilia, the Festival has commissioned a new production with stage direction by  Daniele Abbado, who is also the Emilio  theater’s Artistic Director . Whilst in general, I have always enjoyed Abbado’s works, this time he was not too persuasive as  the production felt  monotonous and confusing. We had the soloists dressed in ancient Assyrian costumes, while the members of the chorus all wore modern costumes and all of them Jewish. The Hebrews even  sang as the Assyrian soldiers, which was  fairly puzzling. I have no idea what Abbado means to convey with all this, unless he wants to show present day Israelis recalling the exile of their ancestors in Babylon. The sets are no more than a big wall (the Wailing Wall in many cases) and  although  this wall turns around some times, there was far to  much wall for two and half hours. In summary, it’s a production with an interesting idea  but it’s insufficiently developed and not particularly attractive.

The musical direction was in the hands of the young conductor  Michele Mariotti, best known until very recently as  accompanying Juan Diego Flórez in concerts. He came out as the real success of the evening. He’s  extremely promising, considering that he is still in his twenties. His reading had good rhythm, he was in  full control of both stage and pit and he well nuanced  dramatic sense when the occasion required it. Yet again and true to form,  the orchestra and chorus of the Teatro Regio di Parma produce a very good performance. There was no reprise for “Va Pensiero”, although part of the audience clearly wanted it to judge by the applause.

Nabucco was sung by British baritone Anthony Michaels-Moore, who was quite convincing, after a rather nondescript start. He is a clearly a baritone worthy to of  many Verdi roles and was most  moving in “Dio di Giuda”.

The Greek soprano Dimitra Theodossiou sang Abigaille, without a doubt one of the most dramatic and demanding roles in the Verdi repertoire. This soprano raises great passion among  many opera aficionados, who consider her as a true star. I have never shared their enthusiasm, because I have never had the opportunity to see her in what I believe it should be her natural  repertoire. In my opinion Ms. Theodossiou is a lyric soprano, one of the few belcanto sopranos around nowadays, able to sing in true mezza voce and to produce beautiful pianissimi. As a dramatic soprano, she has never wholly convinced me and my opinion has not changed after this Abigaille. In the first place, her lower register  fell short of the required standard for  this opera. On the other hand, her top notes are not controlled and were literally shouted in dramatic outbursts. Her best moment by far was the Act I aria, where Verdi asks for a belcanto soprano.

Carlo Colombara  is a singer with whom there are no surprises. He was a good Zaccaría, outstanding in the middle register and with his customary whitish notes at the top. In the rest of the cast, there was a very unimpressive Mickael Spadaccini as Ismaele and   Daniela Inamorati was a dreadfully miscast as Fenena. She spoiled her beautiful aria with many  full pitch problems and shouted notes. A pity. In the secondary roles, the best singing came from Luciano Montanaro with his sonorous voice as as High  Priest

At the final bows most applause to Mariotti and Theodossiou. Her die-hard supporters threw flowers to her and she picked them up while waving and smiling like a true opera diva. Michaels-Moore had very warm reception also.

José M. Irurzun

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