From June 2, the Opéra de Lausanne will be performing the fantastic opera "Nabucco" by Giuseppe Verdi. A family drama about the Abigaille royal family, set in the 19th century. It is about love, jealousy, hatred and madness.
Its emblematic Va, pensiero from the third act echoes forever in the stones of the rediscovered Italy and in the blood of its proud inhabitants. But as powerful as this chorus of slaves may be in all its subtle nostalgia, it alone cannot sum up Giuseppe Verdi's first triumph: his Nabucco, which premiered on the stage of Milan's La Scala on March 9, 1842 and catapulted an almost unknown composer, not even thirty years old, into the light of legend in one fell swoop. And yet the "coup" is enormous: To stage the bravery of a slave people openly demanding their independence (the famous biblical episode of the Hebrews of Babylon) in the midst of a city (Milan) that had been shaped for centuries by the violent desires of continental powers and was at the time under the tight control of the very policed Austro-Hungarian Empire... Later - after the great explosion of 1848 and the unstoppable rise of the Risorgimento - the work was very (too) quickly declared the first 'patriotic opera', but recent studies show that neither the public nor the composer himself were aware of the potentially 'revolutionary' nature of the plot. The work is a grand biblical drama with all the elements typical of opera - weak and powerful juxtapositions, hot but impossible love, exotic scenery... - which the Milan audience first and spontaneously decided in its favor.
Premiere June 2, 2024
Further performances: June 5, 7, 9 and 14, 2024
