Thread: Verdi's Nabucco: Opera or Oratorio?

Giuseppe Verdi’s early masterpiece, Nabucco, first performed in 1842, has been considered by many including the composer himself, to have established his reputation as an opera composer.

I love Verdi’s operas but this one has always puzzled me a little: is it really an opera or an oratorio.

Becoming more familiar with it over the last several years, I think it really is an oratorio because:-

(1) Based on the Biblical story about the plight of the Jews under attack from the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. In other words, the whole story is a Biblical one, not a secular one.

(2) Arias and chorus have strong religious meanings, which for a listener who is religious might view it as such, no different to oratorios with similar intent.

(3) Although not necessarily an oratorio feature, the extensive use of chorus to paint the mood of nations/peoples and the religious meanings of it when viewed within Biblical themes.

When evaluated using these three criteria, Nabucco is no different to oratorios of other great masters, such as Handel. (Indeed, with Handel’s masterpieces, the terms “dramatic oratorios” have often been used).

The version I have is the DVD Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus under James Levine. And you?

Fellow wise opera lovers, let me know your thoughts!

It's an opera. In spite of the biblical theme, there are non-biblical characters, love stories, political intrigue, treason... and most importantly, it was conceived for the stage, not the church.

Yes. I guess that's why some of these types of works are a bit of both. Verdi almost certainly would have composed it as an opera in mind.

Love stories, political intrigue, treason and non-biblical characters do not alone define if such works are oratorios. Many examples could easily be found where all of these have been incorporated but were still oratorios. Whether or not it was conceived for the church is perhaps the least material. Most of Handel's and Haydn's were first performed in theatres/outside the church/private estates.

I think the old fashioned concept of oratorio has pretty much waned but the time Verdi and the Romantics were busy composing operas.

Boring old semantics perhaps!

Originally Posted by HarpsichordConcerto

Yes. I guess that's why some of these types of works are a bit of both. Verdi almost certainly would have composed it as an opera in mind.

Love stories, political intrigue, treason and non-biblical characters do not alone define if such works are oratorios. Many examples could easily be found where all of these have been incorporated but were still oratorios. Whether or not it was conceived for the church is perhaps the least material. Most of Handel's and Haydn's were first performed in theatres/outside the church/private estates.

I think the old fashioned concept of oratorio has pretty much waned but the time Verdi and the Romantics were busy composing operas.

Boring old semantics perhaps!

Sorry but I respectfully disagree. Whether these works were conceived for the church or not is at the very core of the definition of oratorio. Even though some of them may have been performed in theatres, outside the church, or in private estates, they were "conceived for the church" as a concept (probably I should have written Church with a capital C, to underline the concept, the intention of the work, although they were naturally presented in concert halls given the size of the required forces, including a full orchestra). So, I meant Church as in a religious entity, not as in a building (whether oratorios are presented in churches or concert halls, they are in the business of religious sentiments - although there are exceptions, called secular oratorios).

They weren't "conceived for the stage," a different concept, involving acting, props, scenarios, elaborated costumes, etc, which are at the core definition of what an opera is. Oratorios were meant to induce pious sentiments (remember that the origin of the word oratorio is Italian for "small chapel" and is based on the Latin root for "to pray"), while operas dealt with more mundane human emotions. The fact that *some* works on both sides of the divide have strayed and have crossed the line into the other genre's territory doesn't invalidate the core definition of an oratorio versus that of an opera. It just means that some works are less purist in their treatment of these genre rules. It doesn't eliminate the divide, and doesn't make of oratorios and operas the same musical genre. Opera is musical theater. Oratorio isn't.

So, get a work like Der Rosenkavalier. It's an opera, no doubt about it. Say that in some town without a proper opera house, an amateur group manages to get the authorization of some liberal church to use their building as a theater, and they go and perform Der Rosenkavalier on an improvised stage there (kind of unlikely given the subject matter, but you get what I mean). Does it make of Der Rosenkavalier, an oratorio?

Take Haydn's The Creation. Let's say all the concert venues and churches in town are taken and Haydn's oratorio is staged - as a concert piece, no elaborate costumes, no scenarios, no interactions between the singers on stage, the topic is Genesis, the characters are God, Satan, Adam, Eve - at an opera house. Does it make of it an opera?

It is true that there are works that defy classification. But in my opinion Nabucco isn't one of them.

You'll be hard pressed to find any music scholar or historian who would classify Verdi's Nabucco as an oratorio, for the reasons that I've mentioned. It's an opera. You may argue that it has certain elements of an oratorio, but this doesn't make of it one. It's still an opera, in intention, scope, style, characterization, etc.

A fundamental way to tell the difference between a work of musical theater and a concert piece is the presence of stage directions in the former, and their absence in the latter. You need stage directions to present Nabucco but you don't need them to present The Creation.

Sure, I don't doubt much at all that most/all folks would consider Nabucco as an opera.

Going back to your point about other oratorios concevied for the church, as an institution however, I don't think I can agree with that in general. Handel wrote many of his late mature oratorios, not necessarily for any church in mind. Indeed, many were collaborated with librettists of different Christian faiths and performed in a theatre, many were not associated with specifc religious festivities and were performed during theatre seasons.

Your example of Haydn's The Creation doesn't really fit the bill to compare with any operas. It obviously isn't an opera by any stretch. He wrote it because he was impressed by Handel's oratorios and it was first performed behind private doors. Yes, I am not confused by whether or not a piece of work is physically performed as first intended in a church or not to have it considered as an oratorio.

I know you wrote once before that you don't particularly listen much to oratorios, but if a particular classification bothers you, then I apologise. All I'm saying is there are plenty of masterpiecs out there that are not classified as operas (even as a marketing ploy as their composers may intend), but are clearly dramatic works. Or even the other way. Handel advertised Semele as an oratorio, but it really was an opera.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I never heard of the division between opera and oratorio to be one of content (secular vs. sacred), or even so much of structure (both can contain choruses, arias, and can follow a narrative), but rather of staging. Opera combines acting, scenery, and costumes into musical theater while oratorios are concert pieces. And it's true operas can and have been staged as concert pieces, but as Almaviva put it, the "intention, scope, style, characterization" is what makes the difference.

Seems pretty cut and dry. *Shrug* There's never been any more confusion over Nabucco being an opera or oratorio than there has been over Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila or Schoenberg's Moses und Aron.

Originally Posted by HarpsichordConcerto

Sure, I don't doubt much at all that most/all folks would consider Nabucco as an opera.

Going back to your point about other oratorios concevied for the church, as an institution however, I don't think I can agree with that in general. Handel wrote many of his late mature oratorios, not necessarily for any church in mind. Indeed, many were collaborated with librettists of different Christian faiths and performed in a theatre, many were not associated with specifc religious festivities and were performed during theatre seasons.

Your example of Haydn's The Creation doesn't really fit the bill to compare with any operas. It obviously isn't an opera by any stretch. He wrote it because he was impressed by Handel's oratorios and it was first performed behind private doors. Yes, I am not confused by whether or not a piece of work is physically performed as first intended in a church or not to have it considered as an oratorio.

I know you wrote once before that you don't particularly listen much to oratorios, but if a particular classification bothers you, then I apologise. All I'm saying is there are plenty of masterpiecs out there that are not classified as operas (even as a marketing ploy as their composers may intend), but are clearly dramatic works. Or even the other way. Handel advertised Semele as an oratorio, but it really was an opera.

I'm not bothered at all. I'm just replying to your question and expressing my views of it. You asked for a reply and a discussion, didn't you?

I think you're still misunderstanding what I'm saying. When I say "for the Church," I'm not thinking about a specific church - the Roman Catholic Church for instance, or any other Christian denominations, just as much as I'm not thinking about a specific building. I'm saying that oratorios were originally conceived to inspire pious, religious sentiments, and were intended to enhance faith and celebrate religious viewpoints (thus the name oratorio, with its chapel/pray connotations). Later there have been secular oratorios, but they aren't at the core of the genre, they are at the fringe. Most bona fide oratorios have religious themes.

My example of The Creation *didn't* intend to be closer to opera, as much as my example of Der Rosenkavalier (with its rather immoral subject matter - it starts with an orgasm in an adulterous relationship!) didn't intend to be closer to an oratorio. I was just making the point that performing these well defined works in different settings such as a church, a concert hall, or an opera house, *doesn't* change the fact that one is an oratorio, and the other one is an opera, regardless of where they are performed. I deliberately used well defined examples of each genre to counter your idea that the fact that many oratorios were performed in theaters and private estates minimizes the religious focus/intention that I was referring to when I said "for the Church."

Still, I didn't make of the content the core of my argument because I did acknowledge that the genre evolved to incorporate secular works, but rather, the concert piece nature of oratorios with no props, scenario, costumes, acting, stage directions, versus the musical theater aspect of opera where all of the above are present.

Finally, the fact you have correctly stated that I am not in the habit of listening to oratorios as much as I listen to opera, doesn't mean that I don't know the difference. I also don't listen much to country music (or rather, I don't listen to it at all), but I know what country music is.

I have agreed that some works are difficult to classify - case in point, La Damnation de Faust which is somewhere on the border of oratorios and operas to the point that the composer himself came up with a new name: légende dramatique. At one point, however, Berlioz did authorize its staging as opera and suggested a couple of stage directions. Still, it's more often staged as a concert piece, and its topic is half secular, half religious. Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex is another example. And the more dramatic some Handel oratorios became, the more genre overlapping happened. Moses und Aron not only sits on the border as well, but has an entire act that the composer specifically asked not to be staged, and didn't even write the music for it. What the heck, the main character in Moses und Aron doesn't even sing. Is it a play? Oratorio? Opera? So, yes, there are ambiguous works, but my point is, Nabucco is not one of those. Nabucco is very clearly an opera.

I understand that Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust is more a concert work than an opera, but it has been staged as an opera as well. I'd say that that work bucked the trend a bit, as audiences in the c19th were generally thirsting for opera, not oratorios or cantatas or whatever (although the English pretty much kept the tradition going, commissioning masterpieces like Mendelssohn's Elijah)...

EDIT - Almaviva mentioned Berlioz the same time as I was typing! Another work like this I can think of (opera-oratorio) is Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex (HC, you might like to hear that one, if you haven't already, some recordings include narration in English)...

Originally Posted by Poppin' Fresh

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I never heard of the division between opera and oratorio to be one of content (secular vs. sacred), or even so much of structure (both can contain choruses, arias, and can follow a narrative), but rather of staging. Opera combines acting, scenery, and costumes into musical theater while oratorios are concert pieces. And it's true operas can and have been staged as concert pieces, but as Almaviva put it, the "intention, scope, style, characterization" is what makes the difference.

Seems pretty cut and dry. *Shrug* There's never been any more confusion over Nabucco being an opera or oratorio than there has been over Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila or Schoenberg's Moses und Aron.

While I agree with most of what you're saying, oratorios indeed were initially conceived with the intention of putting forward sacred matters, and the majority of works classified as oratorios follow this intention. So, it is one of the elements of the distinction - but the main element (this is why I say in my very first post in this thread - "most importantly, it was conceived for the stage") is the musical theater nature of operas.

OK. Forget I asked this question then. It seems it was too obvious a question to ask; "seems pretty cut and dry" (with a shrug, too).

Let me just say that I have no doubt that Verdi's "intention, scope, style and characterisation" make Nabucco an opera. Perhaps I have pushed its heavy religious themes too far. (I'm not religious at all, in case if you're wondering).

It certainly is the only opera of his (I think) that features such a strong religious theme (or at least, that borrows so heavily Biblical ideas/story line). It was composed after the first couple of years when both his wife and children all died; obviously a tragedy for him as a young aspiring composer. So I was wondering if any religious impetus had to do with it. Indeed, it was often said that Verdi thought of giving up composing music altogether when he was writing his second opera (Un giorno di regno) when his family all died by 1840 (wife was the last to die in June 1840). Nabucco was his third opera. I would not imagine Verdi's personal circumstances would have been happy at all during the early 1840's.

Originally Posted by HarpsichordConcerto

OK. Forget I asked this question then. It seems it was too obvious a question to ask; "seems pretty cut and dry" (with a shrug, too).

Let me just say that I have no doubt that Verdi's "intention, scope, style and characterisation" make Nabucco an opera. Perhaps I have pushed its heavy religious themes too far. (I'm not religious at all, in case if you're wondering).

It certainly is the only opera of his (I think) that features such a strong religious theme (or at least, that borrows so heavily Biblical ideas/story line). It was composed after the first couple of years when both his wife and children all died; obviously a tragedy for him as a young aspiring composer. So I was wondering if any religious impetus had to do with it. Indeed, it was often said that Verdi thought of giving up composing music altogether when he was writing his second opera (Un giorno di regno) when his family all died by 1840 (wife was the last to die in June 1840). Nabucco was his third opera. I would not imagine Verdi's personal circumstances would have been happy at all during the early 1840's.

Still, Verdi didn't want to take on the Nabucco libretto at all. It was shoved down his throat (metaforically) and down his pocket (literally) by the manager of La Scala who wanted him to resume composing after his personal tragedy. According to Verdi's own account, he angrily threw the libretto on his table when he got home with no intention of working on it at all, but the libretto fell open on the page in which the words "Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate" were written. Verdi thought that the words were "very musical" and couldn't stop thinking about them, and ended up little by little setting the poem to music. It doesn't seem to me that the fact that it was a religious theme is what motivated him.

Originally Posted by Almaviva

Still, Verdi didn't want to take on the Nabucco libretto at all. It was shoved down his throat (metaforically) and down his pocket (literally) by the manager of La Scala who wanted him to resume composing after his personal tragedy. According to Verdi's own account, he angrily threw the libretto on his table when he got home with no intention of working on it at all, but the libretto fell open on the page in which the words "Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate" were written. Verdi thought that the words were "very musical" and couldn't stop thinking about them, and ended up little by little setting the poem to music. It doesn't seem to me that the fact that it was a religious theme is what motivated him.

True. Possibly he got fed up/disillusioned with his God! The Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate story, like many big hits, have always been associated with stories, composer or not related.

who voted 'string quartet' ... Alan?