Review - Freiburg's Nabucco
A mesh of post-modern fragments in a globalised world
It certainly is not 587 BC when the curtain was raised and the audience
got to spy on an evening gala in the ultra-modern new Temple of Solomon,
decorated solely with a monstrous golden chalice-like bowl in the background.
Decked out in red, red evening gowns for the ladies and red suits for the
gentlemen, the crowd moves slowly to the staccato euphoria of the philharmonic
orchestra under Fabrice Bollon in the overture.
The threat of invasion
temporarily forgotten, the loving couples cling to each other.The music
sometimes correlates but more often contradicts the stage setting which
overflowing with symbolism. Nabucco (Juan Orozco) stands isolated from his army
high above the action in his cubicle that will in the end become his prison.
With a paint brush in his hand, he turns his back to the audience. His almost
cuneiform writing on the wall seems reminiscent of another Babylonian
Belshazzar foreshadowing symbolically is doom and misfortune. The Jewish Diaspora brings them into
a small enclosed space, a fenced ghetto protected by military wardens in black
and red uniforms. The spectator is forcefully ripped out of the illusion on
stage, these visual clues suffice to remind the spectator of a not so distant
past in German history. The Babylonian relief, that seems to dominate the
stage, and the 1940s costumes invite the spectator to draw parallels between
biblical Diaspora and war time deportation.
If you expect the glorious
fighting spirit in, what has been called the anthem for a unified and
independent Italy “Va pensiero”, you’d be thoroughly disappointed, Verdi’s
dictum ‘Largo’ was taken more than seriously by Ballon. The choir dressed up
for the night struggling with their cumbersome luggage, remains static, devoid
of the energy impressed on the text. The “crude lamentation” remains full of
despair, which in turn is only fuelled by the subliminal allusions to the dark
part of German history. As the choir stands bared of their grandiose robes and
jewellery, in their undergarments between pieces of luggage, the biblical
diaspora in Babylon merges with the images of deportation and concentration
camps. But while the musical echo rang forcefully through the dome of the sold
out theatre, the might of Verdi’s music, was at times drowned out by the
longwinded pauses and the overshadowing insistence on a post-modern
cross-cultural adaptation.
Roughly four hours later, the final curtain fell
on the remorseful sinner Nabucco who brought the deportees new hope, dressed in
a bathrobe accessorized with a Shepard’s staff, the former pagan sovereign
exchanged his golden crown for one of thorns. And despite the forceful
conviction of the music, Stefan Rieckhoff’s costume design, converts Nabucco to
Christianity. In the end Nabucco, the tyrant, is no more, his new messianic
role brings the lost souls back to their faith, the temple is rebuilt and God
has forgiven. And the rabbi Zaccaria (Jin Seok Lee) forcefully proclaims the
ex-heathen converted to a new faith heralding the coming of a pre-Christian
era, Nabucco as the first king of kings. These are the early days of a new
golden age, if the newly revealed colossal sun is any indication for what is
coming.
Nabucco - Va pensiero adaption (not Freiburg)
Review - Badische Zeitung
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