Nabucco
Nabucco is opera in four acts composed in 1841 to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The libretto is based on biblical stories from the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Daniel and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue.
The performer with anything but a small voice was the Nabucco of Dragutin Matić. Still only 33 years old, he first studied in Belgrade then in Würzburg Germany under the celebrated soprano Cheryl Studer. The grueling tessitura of the role is in many ways similar to that of Abigaille in that the demands Verdi places on this new kind of ‘high baritone’ are formidable in the extreme.
Dragutin Matić has the robust masculine vocal colour of Matteo Manuguerra, the warm rounded mezzovoce tones of Piero Cappuccilli and the ringing top register of Renato Bruson.
Jonathan Sutherland, Opera Today
