Nabucco
Guiseppe Verdi
Libretto by Temistocle Solera
Director – Dmitry Bertman
Music Director – Eugene Brazhnik
Set and Costume Designers – Igor Nezhny and Tatiana Tulubieva
Playing time – 2 hours 30 minutes
Premiere – November 17, 2004 (Le Duo Dijon, France)
"Nabucco" is the third opera by G. Verdi and his first masterpiece. The plot of "Nabucco" follows the stories of Old Testament, which says about the siege of Jerusalem by Assyrian king Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco in Italian) and Babylonian captivity of Jewish people. Verdi's opera is a battle of nations and religions, personalities of Biblical scale and frantic romantic passions/ "Nabucco" is famous for extrenal compexity of vocal parts, which combine belcanto splendour and dramatic power, as well as the remarkeble choruses among which is the famous "Va, pensiero".
This opera appeared in Helikon's repertoire in 2004, the premier performances took place in Dijon and Paris. Since 2005 "Nabucco" staged by Dmitry Bertman, Igor Nezhny and Tatiana Tulubieva is performed on stage of Mariinsky theatre (Saint-Petersburg). Unfortunately,the hall which could place such grandiose performance wasn't found in Moscow, that is why "Helikon-Opera" shows only concert version of "Nabucco" on its stage.