Both the operas Seattle Opera has recently presented concern Jewish characters who undergo displacement based on events pivotal to the history of the Jewish people: in the case of Nabucco, the Babylonian captivity; and in the case of An American Dream, the Holocaust. We are indebted to James Mirel (photo below), Rabbi Emeritus at Temple B’nai Torah in Bellevue, who attended both shows last weekend and who shared his reactions with me the other day. (Rabbi Mirel is no stranger to Seattle Opera. His wife, mezzo soprano Julie Mirel, sang many roles with Seattle Opera in the 1980s. Explore her Seattle Opera career HERE.)
That was quite a weekend! I felt that both librettists, Temistocle Solera, who wrote
Nabucco for Verdi, and Jessica Murphy Moo, who wrote
An American Dream, did a good job portraying sympathetic Jewish characters. From my perspective as a rabbi and a Jew in Seattle, it’s good to have positive representations of Jews onstage. Because sometimes it’s negative:
The Merchant of Venice, for instance. Yes, I know, Shakespeare is a very sophisticated dramatist; but Shylock isn’t so appealing a character.
I give Solera a lot of credit. Smart guy! Sometimes the words of an opera libretto are not really all that important, but in this case they are. Nabucco is based on the Bible, and the words of the most famous passage, the chorus of the Hebrew slaves, “Va, pensiero,” come from Psalm 137. “By the waters of Babylon we sat and wept; on the willows there we hung up our lyres.” When the opera was first performed, that piece was understood as being about Italy. But today, when we listen to it, it’s Zionist. They want to return to Zion.
"Va, pensiero" from Seattle Opera's Nabucco
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