Tag Archives: Renato Balsadonna

Nabucco, Royal Opera, January 2022

The eponymous character in Verdi’s third opera Nabucco is Nebuchadnezzar II, mighty king of Babylon. The opera calls for a colourful production, but without the slightest nod to Byron’s imagery about the Babylonian ‘cohorts gleaming in purple and gold’, here was a mid-twentieth century, third-rate dictatorship, with bare-chested guards in braces toting AK-47s. See my review …

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Don Quichotte, Grange Park Opera, June 2014

In the much-performed Don Quixote ballet (music by Minkus) the Don sees his fantasy Dulcinée as one of a pair of young lovers whom he gracefully helps bring together, and they are the main characters. But in this late Massenet opera the main character is the noble yet delusional Don himself, with Dulcinée as a …

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