On 20 February soprano Anna Markarova and bass Pavel Shmulevich will make their debuts as Abigaille and Zaccaria in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Nabucco (production by Dmitry Bertman).
“It was with the opera Nabucco that my creative career truly began,” wrote Verdi in his autobiography. The first opera by the composer, then aged twenty-eight, to receive critical acclaim followed two failures as well as a tragedy in Verdi’s personal life; he took heart from this and returned to composing once more.
Soprano Anna Markarova joined the Mariinsky Opera in 2010, and has since successfully performed a number of lead roles from Verdi’s operas there, among them Odabella (Attila), Aida (Aida), Leonora (La forza del destino), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Elisabeth de Valois (Don Carlo), Leonora (the recent premiere of Il trovatore) and the soprano role in a stage version of the composer’s Requiem. In Nabucco she will be appearing in the role of the imperious and scheming Abigaille who uses any possible means at her disposal to attain the throne of the Kingdom of Babylon, even at the cost of the lives of her own father and sister. Last month Anna Markarova brilliantly performed this role at the famous Teatro Comunale in Florence.
In the 2013-2014 season Nabucco will be the third Verdian opera to see a debut by bass Pavel Shmulevich. This talented soloist has successfully performed the roles of Banco (Macbeth) and Ramfis (Aida), and will again be demonstrating his supreme command of the Verdian performing style. In Nabucco the singer will be performing the role of Zaccaria, High Priest of the Hebrews, whose wisdom and fortitude in the face of disaster allow the oppressed people to survive.
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