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Nabucco at Kaiserslautern Opera House [ Author Floarea Trasca ] [ From category THE Articles ] [ Translator Adrian Trasca ] [ Article date: 2013-02-13 ] [ From city Kaiserslautern ] [ Country Germania ]   On 23rd of January I watched "Nabucco" by Verdi performance at Phalztheater Kaiserslautern Opera House. The open scene show a squared, black room and on the floor there were papers and photo fraied by the time. A few objects, chairs, broken toys, were through papers showing an image of a left and devasteted space. A few persons having different ages left easy the scene before the start of the overture. They look loke some sutvivors coming bake to a place of a tragedy. They rised up the papers, researched the objects, tried to understand what happened. And suddenly the history came alive in front of them: a character, who looked like a discusting rat and having a briefcase, goes through the others, fearing not to find out the truth. When the human circle raised around him, he throws far away the briefcase with the documents which shows his betrayal and collapse. A man between two ages comfort a the remnant of a wood horse and the childhood memories revive. The scene splits in two parts: on the right the children play wihtout worry, on the left the grown-up people is near the gray wall where white and black panels lights up or dissaperar with thunders. There is a whole people of victims waiting near the wall. The atmosphere became threating, the children dissapear and a woman appears, dressed in a ball dress: Fenena, the daughter if Nabuccodonosor, the king who wants to destroy the jewish people. Fenena is prisoner of the jews and Zaccaria, the big priest, considers her a pledge before the anger of the babylonian king. The people shows its pain and anger lifting up uhe right hand as they would throw a stone. Ismael, an young jew fighter, gots the task to guard Fenena while the whole people is determined to defend. On the back of the scene, where is the dark wall of the temple, appears from the right to the left the fired letters of the message of the unique God worshiped by jews. On the stage appears fighters with long gray coats, black trousers and gray caps. Their ruler is obedient to young Abigaille, the alleged daughter of the babilonian king. Abigaille rejects Fenena because she is for her the rival for the throne and also in love, because they both love the same man, the young Ismael. He loves Fenena, who saved his life once. The outfit of Abigaille - a ball skirt over the black trousers - is symbolic: shows the feminity and tempts Ismael, but actualy she wants revenge, has warrior instincts and a big desire to dominate. For her the people are meanless - and this is the reason why they dissapear from the scene. There place is taken by a big desk where is a shining World globe. Abigaille comforts the globe dreaming to extend her empire over all the world. Behind the desk there is an white panel like a vacuum sky where the blue clouds have the shape of the continents. Abigaille has no mercy: she brutaly removes Fenena and orders to her soldiers to torture Ismael who rejected her and, as a sign of the triumph, she dance with a giant green pistol and shoots with it her submissives who are aligned as a guard of honor. All speaks about the crazyness which can be touched because of unmeasured desire of subdue the others. Ih this world dominated by irational even the beaings are distorting, image created by the poster sticked by her ofer the right wall: half of it shows the superior part of a head of an warrior with a cap, looking as an american rifleman, the other half represents the the inferior part of a face of an young man with beard, maybe a rabbi, maybe other intellectual, anyway it looks the opposite of the warrior. The split of the two halfs has many interpretations, firs being the separation between the brain/thinling and mouth/promises. After she shooted all of them, Abigaille seems to dominate the stage as a goddes of unleashed war. The attempt of the priest Zaccaria to resist is defeated, he is deprived even by its mantle which shows his role between the people. All the show, including the game of curtains, contributes for the transmiting of the opera messages. When the king Nabuccodonosor appears as a lunatic, wearing drawers and white shirt, after the thin curtain is seen the bodies of his victims, women, men, children, all in long horizontal strings. The guardian, who is asiatic, takes the king in the right of the stage and close him behind bars and after that he goes to sleep! The lunatic paints his shirt with orange: the draw seams to be a giant star of David. The the lunatic king cuts from a cardboard a crown and puts it on his head while he covers his guardian with the lefted fragments which looks like confetti. Slowly, taking advantage of the sleep of the guardian, the king get off the grid and goes to new actions. In this moment it sound the faimous choir "Va pensiero..." which seams to come from the heart of the Earth and the lyed-down bodies of victims came to life. The lunatic king goes between the human strings and remembers his massacres. The the choir is finished, the bodies fall down then dissapear. On the stage appears the faithfull soldiers of Abigaille. They dance mocking around the lunatic king and give to him the boots, coat and robe. The king dresses with them determined to act. The soldiers dance on a ritm which looks like an old jewish dance and puts on their heads the jewish hats mocking the jews. Abigaille convinces the lunatic king to go the the desk and to sign the act which condemn to death all the jewish people. After that, she humiliates Nabucco, breaks his cartoon crown, takes his mantle and shove him when he is worried about Fenena, his daughter. Behind the thin curtain is Fenena who converts to judaism in Hanging Gardens. Now she is wearing a simple white dress, symbol of purity. Now she is defended also by the big jewish priest. Waked from his numbness, the king kills the Abigaille`s army chief and spares the jews. Abigaille, who found out she is not the daughter of the king, but only an adopted slave, selfharmeds and tries to obtain mercy from Fenena and Nabucco, but she falls as a cloth doll before the king`s dagger. The scene fills with persons wearing white clothes having an oblic brown stripe. All the people sings with the big priest, while the fire letters came again on the temple`s wall. The "Nabucco" performance of Phalztheater of Kaiserslautern looks as a real artistic true opera is always actual and unlimited symbolic. Verdi composed the opera thinking to the Austro-hungarian Empire who dominates the italian people during his time. She show of Kaiserslautern evokes the period when the jews were slaves in Egipt and the invasion of babilonians, but, in the same time, blame the desire of conquering, the wars started because of the madness of some rulers and the human tragedies resulted from this kind of actions. And, in the middle of desasters, the love win and the lorn people keeps it dignity.

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