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Description
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About Nabucco
NABUCCO
opera
in Italian with English and Hungarian subtitles
August 15. 2026, Saturday, 8:00 PM
(rain date: august 16)
Margaret Island Open-Air Stage
Running time: 180 minutes (with 1 intermission)
Featuring: the Kodály Philharmonic Orchestra and the Kodály Choir Debrecen
Conductor: István Dénes
Director, producer: Teodóra Bán
The Margaret Island Theatre will again present one of the biggest audience hits of the 2025 season, the opera NABUCCO, in the summer of 2026!
The audience can again see Nabucco, the King of Babylon, played by Mihály Kálmándy, a Kossuth Prize-winning opera singer and lifetime member of the Society of Immortals, in 2026. The Hungarian baritone debuted in the title role of Verdi's Nabucco at the beginning of his career, while still a student at the Gh. Dima Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca. Later, his international career began with his Nabucco production at the Teatro Verdi Trieste. Mihály Kálmándy has performed in Rome, Naples, Vienna, Stockholm, London, Warsaw, as well as Seoul and New Zealand, among other places. All the while, he continuously sang major baritone roles at the Hungarian State Opera House.
The Hungarian dramatic coloratura and spinto soprano Csilla Boross, with her stunning voice and numerous national and international awards, launched her international career with the role of Abigél in Verdi's opera Nabucco in 2011 in Rome, conducted by Riccardo Muti. Since then, she has sung the role more than 140 times in the world's most prestigious opera houses and festivals. Wherever she appears, this phenomenon is met with ovations and thunderous applause. Her rich repertoire includes iconic female figures from the masterpieces of operatic literature, such as Tosca, Aida, Odabella, Minni, Maddalena, Giorgetta, Gioconda, and Tannhäuser's Venus and Elisabeth, ranging from Baroque to contemporary works.
Fenena, Nabucco's daughter, will be played by Szilvia Vörös, a Gundel Prize and Junior Prima Prize-winning opera singer (mezzo-soprano), who has been a member of the Vienna State Opera since 2018.
Ismael, the nephew of the King of Jerusalem, will again be played by the charming, young Venetian-born Riccardo Gatto in 2026.
At the age of twenty-seven, Verdi decided he would never write another opera. He was at a professional and personal low point. In this seemingly hopeless situation, he was only willing to read the libretto at the urging of his agent, and then he created an opera that changed his life and united his country.
The unquenchable love for freedom and loyalty to the nation are most memorably displayed in the chorus of the Hebrew slaves in the history of music: following the example of the Jewish people, Giuseppe Verdi's music truly became a beacon for the nations. The thought with golden wings from Psalm 137 travels through time and arrives in the 19th century and beyond, from ancient Israel, from Babylon to Europe.
By the spring of 1842, all of Milan was humming "Va, pensiero...". The opera was soon performed in the most important opera houses on the continent and was also presented in America. The Hungarian premiere took place in January 1847 at the National Theatre.
