Recordings Review: And the Chorus Shall Lead Them

The Superconductor Verdi series rolls on with Nabucco.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Detail from the Ishtar Gate © 2013 The Pergamon Museum.

Like the weight and splendor of King Nebachudnezzar's massive Ishtar Gate (that guarded the entrance to Bablyon before winding up at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin) there's nothing subtle about Nabucco.

Verdi's third opera (and first smash hit) is a blood-and-thunder retelling of the Bablyonian captivity of the Old Testament. It opens with the sack of Jerusalem and the triumphat entrance of the Babylonian conqueror Nebachudnezzar. From there, the plot boils up a story of Nabucco's spiritual struggles with guilt as well as his fight for the throne with his psychotic daughter Abagaille. This is another Verdi collaboration with Temostocle Solera, who based the story on a French play and the events recounted in the Book of Daniel. This was Verdi's third opera to premiere at La Scala.

DVD Review: It's Not Delivery

It's Un Giorno di Regno, Verdi's second opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The wife of bath: Anna Caterina Antonacci as the Marchesa in Un Giorno di Regno.
Image © 2012 C Major Entertainment

(Ed. Note: This is the second step in a planned Superconductor celebration of Verdi's 200th birthday. The idea is to write about different recordings or DVDs of all of the Verdi operas plus the Requiem, ideally ending with Falstaff in October. The series started in January with a review of Oberto.)

Un Giorno di Regno ("King for a Day") was Verdi's second opera and his first attempt at comedy. It was also the first catastrophic failure of his career, premiering to hisses and boos at La Scala in 1840. Faced with a choice of libretti, the young composer selected a text originally titled La Finta Stanislao. This was an attempt at madcap, Da Ponte style comedy, the story of a a young nobleman who has to pretend to be a Polish king at a French court so the real King can slip off to Warsaw and legitimize his reign. And yes, it's based on historical incident.

This DVD was shot at the Teatro Regio di Parma in January of 2010. It is the first release of Un Giorno for home video, and the second of Tutto Verdi: a series of DVDs of all the Verdi operas on the C Major label. With a young cast of singers and an energetic conductor in Donato Renzetti, one had hopes that this lost Verdi comedy might be the latest of his many operas to be rehabilitated for the world stage.

Recording Review: There Will Be Blood

Oberto, Verdi's first opera indicates great things to come.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The young Giuseppe Verdi. He started work on Oberto when he was 23.

Oct. 10, 2013 marks the 200th birthday of composer Giuseppe Verdi. To celebrate that birthday in style, Superconductor will offer in-depth coverage of Verdi's long career and vast catalogue in coming months.

We start at the beginning, with Oberto.

Verdi's long career as a composer began with Oberto, Comte di San Bonifacio which had its debut at La Scala in 1839. He was 26, and had worked on the opera for three years.

According to Julian Budden's excellent The Operas of Verdi, this work may have originated under the title Rocester, a libretto by Antonio Piazza. He also hints at a libretto called Lord Hamilton that was making the rounds before Verdi settled on Oberto. Both of these earlier works are either lost or integrated into the structure of Oberto.