Nabucco

Published Friday 28 September 2007 at 11:05 by Jeremy Brien

Verdi’s great cry for freedom from tyranny has a special resonance for Ellen Kent as it was the very first opera she produced in 1993.

So it is rather a shame this lavish new version received just one performance at the Bristol Hippodrome against four for Bizet’s old warhorse Carmen.

For this is a work quite literally of biblical proportions, packed with religious fervour, and Kent in her new role as director as well as producer of Opera International, presents the mighty acts of vengeance and destruction with no theatrical holds barred.

The sacking of the Temple of Solomon and striking down of the Statue of Baal are just two of a host of spectacular set pieces, while the human side of the Old Testament narrative is splendidly captured by the Chisinau National Philharmonic Orchestra and chorus in the evocative chorus of the Hebrew slaves.

Some cast members seem a little overawed by both the scale of what is going on around them, and the constant switching of the storyline from hope to despair and back again. This is not true, however, of Boris Materinco, whose powerful baritone voice is at its best in Nabucco’s period of all-conquering power rather than his descent into madness.

He is well matched by Valeriu Cojocaru’s impressively sung high priest Zaccaria, although the outstanding performance of the evening comes from Galina Bernaz, admittedly in the showiest role in the opera, Nabucco’s scheming and bitter elder daughter Abigaille.