Teatro dell’Opera di Roma – Verdi’s Nabucodonosor. July 18, 2013.

Teatro dell’Opera, Rome.    PLATEA (Row 10, Seat 13, Euro 115).

Conductor – Riccardo Muti; Nabucodonosor – Luca Salsi, Ismaele – Francesco Meli, Zaccaria – Riccardo Zanellato, Abigaille – Tatiana Serjan, Fenena – Sonia Ganassi, Il Gran Sacerdote di Belo – Luca Dall’Amico.

Story.  See previous post.

We are on a family trip to Italy, Anne and I don’t have a lot planned other than to be with our children, their spouses, and our 6-month old granddaughter.  I found out a couple of months ago that this was going to be on during our short stay in Rome.  I tried on many occasions to book tickets over the web with my limited Italian skills, but always got to a “system down” page at the end.  On our day of arrival in Rome (July 17) we went to the Opera House right after we checked into the hotel – it is a 5 minute walk – and there were four seats left, all at E115.  While they were among the more expensive seats for the theater, we thought it was a bargain since we were in the 10^th row, slightly off to the left.  Turns out from what we would call the Orchestra section we couldn’t see the orchestra, but we had a good view of the conductor.  To our chagrin, but not surprise, none of our children wanted to come.

My expectation was this would be as Italian as things go: Italian conductor, Italian composer, and an opera with a tune (Hebrew Slave Chorus) very much identified by Italians.  There was one more Italian aspect that I hadn’t figured in: an Italian audience.  They seemed to have little qualms with whispering (as the saying goes, not as quietly as they think they do,) nor with taking pictures during the performance.  I am sure the flashes were unintentional.  They do seem to dress up more properly than a typical Metropolitan Opera audience.  I can’t figure out how the men in suits keep their cool in this warm weather (90s).

Being “very Italian” would mean the program is in Italian, and the surtitles would be in Italian.  That was okay.  While I would love to understand the words as they were being sung, I did read up on the synopsis so I could basically tell what was going on.  Of course any humor or momentary tension would have been lost on me.

Overall, we enjoyed the performance and the experience.  Most of Verdi’s operas contain many lyrical tunes, this one is non exception.  The Hebrew Slave Chorus (va, pensiero) is always enjoyable.  We got to see Muti as an opera conductor for the first time.  One would never expect how ornate the opera house is, especially given how unassuming and simplistic the façade is.  We were quite impressed and couldn’t resist taking a few pictures (not during the performance, I haste to add.)

Now the nitpicking – some nits may have hatched into lice already, actually.  I must start with the sets, or lack thereof.  Act I shows some things dropping down from the ceiling onto a conical pile on the stage.  Even now I can’t imagine what that is supposed to be.  There are some background panels: one showing an overcast sky with the sun peeking through, the other with the silhouettes of four trees that got doubled to eight for the last Act, the significance of which also escapes me.  Oh, there are also these panels to represent the temple/palace.

The singing was generally okay.  Other than the time in Sydney watching Madama Butterfly, I had never had a seat that close to the stage, so I certainly could hear the singers very well.  Those who think the acoustics is great high up in the theater, while correct, perhaps have never sit up front before.  However, to an amateur like me, most voices don’t have the refined quality I’d come to expect from opera singers.  One exception for me was Abigaille sung by the Russian Tatiana Serjan.  When I heard Maria Guleghina singing the same role at the Met in October 2011, my complaint was that she had only one volume: loud.  Here Serjan demonstrated that Abigaille can be wistful as well.  I particularly admire her courage in singing in Italian in front of this audience.

Another aspect of opera performance that I am beginning to appreciate is how engaged the conductor is with the vocal parts. Muti was no exception.  He did most of the conducting sitting down, except when he had to cue in the voices, at which times he would stand up.  As far as I could tell, he used very precise gestures to shape the lines, and even to cue the syllables.  (Anne thought it wasn’t precise enough.)

That makes the Hebrew Slave Chorus particularly disappointing.  I was closed to being shocked how imprecise the chorus members were in this relatively simple tune.  Despite my trying to just enjoy the moment, I couldn’t help noticing the many instances where some voices would come in early (or others coming in late.)  The applause afterwards lasted forever, Muti finally said something to the audience, and redid the number.  This time around I tried to follow Muti’s movements and really thought I could follow him along – of course lip sync and actual singing are two different things.  And the chorus also did better.

With the encore of this number, and with two intermissions, the 2 hour opera turned into a much longer than expected event.  We didn’t get back to the hotel room until after midnight.  We told our children we should be back by 11:15 pm, that got them a bit worried.  It was amazing that people were still having dinner so late on a weeknight.

We were glad we went.  Anne and I actually had dinner by ourselves (not quite by design) before the show.  Today was our 37^th wedding anniversary.