Review: (Montreal) Nabucco (Opera)

The opera within an opera at the opera house
by Aleksandra Koplik

Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco, is about a Babylonian King seeking revenge on the Jews for stealing his daughter, a vicious love triangle driven by power and the Hebrew people seeking freedom from the Assyrians. As the curtains open - on this collaboration between the Washington National Opera, Opera Philadelphia and Minnesota Opera - we are also submerged in 1842 La Scala, when Italy was under Austrian rule. We see three theatre balconies on stage and a group of upper-class Austrians taking their seats. An opera within an opera is taking place.

The Abominable Showman, September 17, 2014

The Italian Stallion
The foremost Verdi baritone of his generation Paolo Gavanelli makes his grand Opera de Montreal debut in the title role of Nabucco

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

The eminent British classical music critic Hugh Canning once described Italian Baritone Paolo Gavanelli as “the foremost Verdi baritone of his generation.”

And certainly Gavanelli has been one of the most successful, with a repertoire of over 50 roles in a career that has spanned over 30 years. He is renowned for his signature roles: Rigoletto, Macbeth, Simon Boccanegra, Falstaff and, of course, Nabucco, which he will reprise in his L’Opera de Montreal debut opposite Russian soprano Tatiana Melnychenko as Abigaille.

The Abominable Showman, September 12, 2014

Marie-Nicole Lemieux (photo by Denis Rouvre)

Opera Nation

Canadian opera companies stick to crowd-pleasing Italian masterpieces to anchor their 2014- 2015 seasons

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

The upcoming 2014-2015 opera season across Canada continues to rely on old Italian classics by such tried-and-true composers as Gaetano Donizetti and Giacomo Puccini. And the biggest buzz this season is the return of the Canadian Opera Company’s internationally-hailed double-bill of Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Arnold Schoenberg’s Erwartung, directed by Robert Lepage.

Vancouver Opera’s upcoming 55th season features four productions: Georges Bizet’s Carmen, in French with English translations projected above the stage (Sept 27 – Oct 5); Stickboy, a moving new opera by world-renowned spoken-word artist Shane Koyczan and composer Neil Weisensel about the inner life of a young boy (Oct 23 – Nov 7, at the Vancouver Playhouse); Johann Strauss, Jr.’s melody-filled epic Die Fledemaus (Feb 28 – March 8, 2015); and to close the season with a bang, Stephen Sondheim’s darkly comical Sweeney Todd, starring real-life husband and wife Greer Grimsley, one of the great bass-baritones of his generation, as Sweeney Todd, and acclaimed mezzo-soprano Luretta Bybee as Mrs. Lovett (Apr 25 – May 3, 2015). All performances (except Stickboy) are at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.