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.

Opera Review: A Voice to Die For

Angela Meade sings Il Trovatore at the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Die hard: Angela Meade as Leonora, having just drunk poison in Act IV of Il Trovatore.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

Wednesday, Jan. 16. 

That date was circled on the calendar for many New York opera lovers as the one night that soprano Angela Meade would sing Leonora in this year's revival of Verdi's Il Trovatore. In fact, it was the only night that the Met had scheduled for this talented soprano, in the middle of January. At the Met, January is where unloved revivals and obscure operas (La Rondine, Le Comte Ory) are sentenced to play before half-empty theaters. (Luckily, opera lovers know this, and plan accordingly!) While this performance turned out to be Ms. Meade's second Leonora of the season (she substituted for an ill Patricia Racette in the Saturday night broadcast) the Washington State-born soprano did not disappoint.