Verdi - Nabucco (Bel Air Classique)

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Verdi's third opera was created at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1842, in the epicentre of the 'Risorgimento and the capital of Italian nationalism, at a time where the supporters of Italian independance from Austrian occupation were starting to make their voices heard. The 'Chorus of the Hebrew slaves', introduced at a pivotal point in the third act where the Jews, exiled from Babylone by Nabuchodonosor, mourn their country, immediately resonated with the Italian nationalists and has ever since been a symbol of Italian national identity. Boldly transposing the action out of biblical times and into Italian Risorgimento, French director Arnaud Bernard sets the opera in the Milanese opera house during the uprisings of 1848. Soprano Susanna Branchini is sublime as Nabuchodonosor’s daughter Abigaille, while Israeli-born conductor Daniel Oren, a true connoisseur of Verdi's musical language as well as a regular guest at the Arena di Verona, conducts this lyrical epic with great panache.