When American director and designer Thaddeus Strassberger began contemplating a new production of Verdi’s “Nabucco” for the Washington National Opera, he immediately focused on the comparison the composer made between the enslavement and exile of the Jews in Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Austrian domination of northern Italy in 1842, when the opera debuted at La Scala.
“I feel a real sense of stewardship because this is the first time it’s been staged in Washington,” Strassberger said. “I graduated from La Scala’s Accademia, so the history of La Scala theater holds a special place in my heart. As the set designer, I worked with the costume designer, and we began by bouncing around possibilities about the direction we should go. At the time Verdi wrote it [“Nabucco”], Italy was living under a foreign invasion from Austria. Even the newspapers of northern Italy were in German. Verdi put his heart into the work to call for Italian independence by equating the Hebrew slaves with the citizens of Milan.
“One hundred seventy years later, we are paying historical homage to the period by constructing a big set that looks like the Temple of Israel and another resembling the Hanging Gardens. Every character is a stand-in for Verdi’s contemporary situation. When the chorus sang the word ‘Assyrian’ at that time, the Italian translation was similar enough to remind the audience of ‘Austrian.’ The romantic angle of the opera was not about historical characters. It was invented by the librettist and remains the same because if the one you love doesn’t love you back, it works as well in 5,000 B.C. as today.”
| Onstage |
| Verdi’s ‘Nabucco’ |
| Where: Kennedy Center Opera House, 2700 F St. NW |
| When: May 2, 5, 10, 13, 15, 18 and 21 |
| Info: $25 to $300; 202-467-4600; 800-444-1324; dc-opera.org |
Three years ago, Strassberger, winner of the European Opera-directing Prize in 2005, made a memorable WNO debut by updating Ambroise Thomas’ opera “Hamlet” to Denmark behind the Iron Curtain. A year earlier, he made a comedic splash directing Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos” for Wolf Trap Opera. Subsequent engagements took him to Opera de Montreal, Arizona Opera and the Norwegian National Opera. His creativity continues unabated in “Nabucco.”
The initial production of “Nabucco” opera was a great success when it opened. The audience settled back to see a four-act opera with intermissions between each act. It was then followed by another intermission and a ballet.
Like Verdi, Strassberger feels an obligation to make an evening in the theater worth while. “For those attending, it is an event,” he said. “They have purchased a seat and invested time and money to get there. When they arrive at the Kennedy Center Opera House, they get to celebrate an old-fashioned aesthetic creation that is now fresh and new, but still allows us to embrace the nostalgia and beauty of the period that is sheer delight.”
