The Canadian Opera Company has opened its 2024-25 mainstage season with a company premiere: Giuseppe Verdi’sis currently onstage at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, marking the COC’s first-ever performances of the 1842 opera.was Verdi’s first major hit, decidedly the opera that made the composer a star, and it’s hard to say why it’s been left off Canada’s biggest opera stage until now.
Wood stars as Nabucco, left, and Mary Elizabeth Williams plays Abigaille, the king's eldest daughter and first in line to the throne., however, where you’ll find the true singing actors. Rihab Chaieb is magnetic as Fenena, the king’s daughter who goes from hostage to champion of the Hebrews. In the midst of a stark, often stiff stage, Chaieb’s Fenena is a breath of fresh air, a nuanced and instantly likable character.
Verdi writes her music with huge leaps, aggressive angles, incessant heights and chesty, animalistic lows; and Williams seems to devour it all, despite the production’s attempts to turn Abigaille into an exaggerated joke. She sings with a metallic sheen that makes me think of Sondra Radvanovsky, soaring over the top of her range and diving through coloratura with ease. And like Chaieb as the younger sister, Williams uses her voice as storytelling, as her way to act Abigaille.