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News and notes from the world of classical music.

Nabucco | Metropolitan Opera

Met Opera's main character on stage
Marty Sohl
/
Metropolitan Opera
Plácido Domingo sings the title role in Verdi's Nabucco."

Sat. Jan. 7 at 1pm on WKAR Radio 90.5 FM | The legendary Plácido Domingo brings another new baritone role to the Met under the baton of his longtime collaborator James Levine.

The success of Verdi’s third opera, a stirring drama about the fall of ancient Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco), catapulted the 28-year-old composer to international fame. The music and Verdi himself were subsumed into a surge of patriotic fervor culminating in the foundation of the modern nation of Italy.

Specifically, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (“Va, pensiero”), in which the Israelites express their longing for their homeland, came to stand for the country’s aspirations for unity and that exciting era in Italian history, the Risorgimento, or “Resurgence.”

Liudmyla Monastyrska is Abigaille, the warrior woman determined to rule empires, and Jamie Barton is the heroic Fenena. Dmitri Belosselskiy is the stentorian voice of the oppressed Hebrew people.

Live Metropolitan Opera Saturday radio broadcasts

Saturdays Dec. 3, 2016-May 13, 2017 on The Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network.

The Metropolitan Opera  broadcast season is sponsored by Toll Brothers, America's luxury home builder, with generous long-term support from the Annenberg Foundation and the Vincent A. Stabile Endowment for Broadcast Media.

Contents of the broadcast are copyrighted by The Metropolitan Opera, all rights are reserved, and any use or reproduction of any of the material therein without permission of The Metropolitan Opera is strictly prohibited and will be prosecuted.

www.metopera.org

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