Lidia Fridman's Abigaille Anchors Pizzi's Spare 'Nabucco' in Parma

Soprano Lidia Fridman's Abigaille was the overwhelming reason to see Pier Luigi Pizzi's new "Nabucco," staged October 18 at the Teatro Regio di Parma as part of Festival Verdi. The production favored visual restraint over monumental spectacle. The results, reviewer Ossama el Naggar writes for OperaWire, were "mixed dramatically but often effective visually," while Francesco Lanzillotta's conducting rounded out a worthwhile evening with Verdi's 1842 breakthrough opera.

Why does this "Nabucco" look the way it does?

Pizzi, who also designed sets and costumes, built the staging on a black-and-white palette, with red marking the Assyrians against the Hebrews. Instead of recreating ancient Babylon or Jerusalem, he relied on a few significant objects. A monumental menorah, toppling when the invaders strike, "conveyed the humiliation of a conquered people more eloquently than the exaggerated expressions of collective grief" common in other productions. A golden statue raised in Nabucco's honor made his claim to divinity tangible — and when divine punishment arrives, the king simply collapses, with no special effects.

The economy of means reflects Pizzi's stated preference for removing the superfluous to reveal the essential. At its best, that puts the characters' conflicts in the foreground. At other moments, though, the austerity "risked becoming emotionally remote," and the stage pictures didn't always deliver the urgency the score demands.

What makes Fridman's Abigaille the story?

The 30-year-old Russian soprano, previously admired as Lady Macbeth in Parma and Lina in "Stiffelio" in Piacenza, took on one of Verdi's most punishing roles. Abigaille requires power, agility, extended range and sustained intensity, moving between explosive coloratura (florid fast passage-work) and passages of lyrical concentration. Fridman handled the extremes with assurance, making the vocal demands part of her dramatic vocabulary.

Dressed in martial, almost Amazonian attire, she projected "both seductiveness and menace." Her Abigaille was, in the reviewer's words, "not simply a villain who happened to possess a spectacular voice: she was a force of nature, driven by ambition, resentment and an increasingly desperate struggle to secure her place in the world." The Act Three confrontation with Nabucco held tension without relying on sheer volume. "Anch'io dischiuso un giorno" revealed the wounded woman beneath the imperious exterior — a slave's daughter longing for love — and "for once, the character's cruelty did not preclude sympathy." Occasional unevenness between registers didn't diminish the impact.

How did the rest of the cast fare?

• Ariunbaatar Ganbaatar (Nabucco): a substantial, resonant Mongolian baritone; "Dio di Giuda!" was movingly delivered, though the characterization needed more regality early on to make the transformation stark.
• Michele Pertusi (Zaccaria): a velvety bass with elegant legato, giving the high priest "prophetic gravity and human vulnerability."
• Laura Verrecchia (Fenena): warm and sympathetic, if a heavier profile than the role's vulnerability wants.
• Andrés Moreno García (Ismaele): musically respectable, but short on charisma.
• Supporting turns from Adriano Gramigni (High Priest of Belo), Simone Fenotti (Abdallo) and Maria Cristina Bellantuono (Anna) were competent to promising.

What does Lanzillotta bring to the podium?

The conductor balanced the score's martial energy against its lyrical contours. Rather than treating early Verdi as a string of bombastic climaxes, he let contrasting textures and dramatic rhythms emerge; the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna responded with cohesion and energy. The Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma, prepared by Martino Faggiani, was among the evening's greatest strengths. "Va, pensiero" unfolded with "sonorous concentration" and a delicate final diminuendo, while the closing prayer "Immenso Jehovah" arguably cut even deeper.

The takeaway: formal restraint cost the production some warmth, and the title role hasn't fully arrived yet. But with Fridman's Abigaille already at this level and Ganbaatar's foundation in place, this "Nabucco" makes a strong case that Festival Verdi's early-Verdi programming — where the composer's reputation was built in 1842 — remains the place to watch these voices develop.