About the work
Giuseppe Verdi’s third opera was his break-out work. By the end of the gestation of NABUCCO the 29-year-old had found his musical style, one that audiences latched onto immediately. It was first and foremost the sheer impact of the chorus scenes and the daringly loud orchestral movements that announced a new chapter in the history of opera. NABUCCO was the first opera to make the chorus one of the main protagonists and the material was ideal for this, with the liberation of the Israelites from Babylonian captivity providing ample occasion for crowd scenes conveying the yearnings and stirrings of an oppressed people. And to top it all, it was not an aria but the “Va, pensiero” Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, sung by the Jewish deportees on the banks of the Euphrates, that became the best known number in the opera – and the most famous Verdi tune of all.

Aside from this NABUCCO reveals Verdi’s feel for situations that lend themselves to being staged and his predilection for eccentric characters. NABUCCO is namely not simply an opera with choral sections; it is also a drama about the disintegration of a family in the form of half-sisters Fenena and Abigaille, who are polar opposites, and their father Nabucco, the authoritarian patriarch [Engl.: Nebuchadnezzar]. On the one hand we have Fenena, who is in love with Ismaele, a Jewish prince, and has converted to Judaism. Meanwhile a jealous Abigaille is scheming to usurp the throne of her father. In a fit of megalomania, Nabucco declares himself an earthly king but also a god, upon which God strikes him down and he becomes crazed and incoherent. Abigaille seizes her chance, crowns herself queen with the support of the army and has her father arrested.

While in jail, Nabucco hears that Abigaille has resolved to have her sister Fenena executed. He regains his reason and beseeches the Jews’ own god to help him. Freed, he gathers his troops, rescues Ferena and sets the Israelites free.


About the production
This dramatic tale beginning with the Israelites’ captivity in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar is one of Verdi’s most popular operas. Hans Neuenfels’s controversial production in 2000 was the last time that the work has been mounted at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 2013, the bicentenary of Verdi’s birth, Keith Warner, a leading light in the international opera community, presented his version of the opera, referencing the period in which it was written, a time of transition from feudalism to an industrialised society. Warner focuses on the differences between the two nations: the Hebrews with their writing system and a culture of democratised education, and the militaristic Babylonians with their concept of power wielded by an autocratic ruler.