Reception of Mesopotamia on Film. Maria de Fatima Rosa

      Figure 2.3 The Gate of Imgur Bel with Assyrian winged bulls from Intolerance (1916). Source: Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, Film Stills Archive.

      2.2.3 The Various Nabuccos

Regarding cinematographic reconstructions based on the history of ancient Mesopotamia, in addition to Semiramis and Sardanapalus, the episode that leads to the fall of Babylon and the historical actors involved in it deserve to be highlighted. In this sense, we now turn to the narratives of the nineteenth century structured around the Babylonian sovereign Nebuchadnezzar II. Although this character is unusual in the cinema,⁵⁹ the screenplays surrounding the ruin of the Euphrates city often involve aspects associated with his life, at least judging by the Old Testament account. And as in other cases, the literature and opera of the previous centuries would influence it.

The first opera based on the Babylonian king’s life made its debut on the London stage in 1816. The play, composed by the famous Italian playwright Giovan Battista Niccolini, did not intend to follow the common biblical story,⁶⁰ as happened with later librettos. Thus, in many ways, Niccolini’s Nabucco does not represent the traditional hero of later operas; he is not the one who ends up playing a decisive role in the liberation of the Jewish population and in the acceptance of their faith, but rather a monarch who is more like the soft Sardanapalus. With his enemies at the door, Nabucco would rather die than fight, although being urged by his soldier to raise the flag of freedom; in an act of despair, the monarch threw himself into the river Euphrates: “Il cadavere mio ritengan l’onde,/Ed ogni re sempre m’aspetti, e tremi.”⁶¹ Later characters would disagree with Niccolini’s, suffering a very different destiny.

The most famous play about the sovereign who restored Babylon’s power and magnificence is not, in fact, Niccolini’s, but the one that Temistocle Solera wrote and that Giuseppe Verdi musicalized. Nabucco premiered in 1842 at the La Scala theater in Milan, immediately obtaining praise and recognition from the critics. It became Verdi’s most successful opera and his salvation,⁶² largely due to the public’s association between the plot and the political events of the time. The Italian composer and librettist draw inspiration for their work from an earlier French piece, dated from 1836, called Nabuchodonosor. Elaborated by M. Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornu, it also achieved great success on the Parisian stage, being adapted to ballet, two years later, by the hand of Italian choreographer Antonio Cortesi. Verdi claimed to have been equally inspired by this ballet.

Anicet-Bourgeois and Cornu composed a tale based on several episodes recorded in the Old Testament. The influences are numerous, from the Book of Jeremiah (such as the prophecies against Babylon and the character of Zacharias, the High Priest of the Jews who provided them with hope, inspired by the prophet himself), to the Book of Daniel (such as the episode of the king’s madness), and to the Book of Chronicles and Ezra (such as the captivity and subsequent liberation of the Jews), although in these books the liberation is due to Cyrus as opposed to what happens in the play. In addition to these themes, the authors introduced new elements such as the rivalry between Nebuchadnezzar’s two fictional daughters, Abigail, defender of the Babylonian cause, and Phenenna, the descendant of the monarch who converts to the Jewish religion and who fights for the exiles.

The antagonism between the sisters is compounded by the love they both express for the same man, Ismael, Sedecias’s nephew. This affectionate opposition would gradually turn into a religious conflict.⁶³ Indeed, from the Anicet-Bourgeois/Cornu plot to the narrative of Solera there is an intensification of the hostility between the pro- and anti-king of Babylon factions, expressed in the antagonism between the two sisters, daughters of the ruler. Solera takes this confrontation further, making Abigail a central character, who stands out for her aversion towards the “sons of Judah.” The drama is no longer merely familiar, but religious⁶⁴ and, above all, national. It is, in fact, with Solera and Verdi that the plot gains a more nationalist stamp with the granting of a voice per se to the people and the composition of the immortal Va, pensiero.

The opera appears, in the middle of the nineteenth century, as cinema would appear in the twentieth, as the ideal space to rethink and revisit the political life of society.⁶⁵ The past was put on screen in order to stimulate an analogy with the present and, thus, create a bridge that would allow to discuss certain aspects of the socio-political ideologies of the time.⁶⁶ Indeed, observing the other’s behavior helped to strengthen the identity spirit of society. For instance, Va, pensiero, composed on the basis of Psalm 137, “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion,” soon became the high point of the play, where the subjugated and enslaved people cried their sadness and the longing for their land and their freedom on stage. The Jewish choir transformed into a veritable anthem of the Italian Risorgimento and the struggle for a unified Italy free from the dominion of foreign powers like the Habsburgs.⁶⁷

Opera was also the ideal vehicle to debate the different roles and distinct spheres that composed society. Hence, through the personas of Abigaille and Fenena,⁶⁸ it is possible to understand the meaning and the idea of ​​ancient Babylon for modern society. Indeed, in the way they act we are able to recognize the stereotypes of the​​ oriental woman and of the ideal female figure according to European archetypes. If the first is depicted as seductive, proud, elusive, and usurper, the second is simple, contained, obedient, and virtuous. Have we not referred to this duality previously in regard to Taneal and Esperia?⁶⁹ And would we not see it many times on cinema screens?⁷⁰

Besides Abigaille’s greed and pride, an important aspect of the plot is her collusion with the High Priest of Bel.⁷¹ This controversial figure embodies the archenemy of the priest of the biblical God, Zacharias, and often appears in the tragedies and librettos that precede the great era of cinema. It is a character that migrates to the screen, namely in David W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), conspiring, as he did in the Nabuccos, against political power. In the movie, he is one of the responsible for the fall of Babylon. He represents a dual opposition, both political and religious, as the character in the opera did.

      The High Priest of Bel is the servant of the false god, therefore a sinner by nature, a very symptomatic view of the Judeo-Christian mentality. In fact, the salvation of Nabucco and the only daughter who shows kindness to him, Fenena, only occurs after his conversion to Yahweh’s faith, as it happens in the Old Testament. Nabucco’s release from his dementia curiously coincides with the liberation of the captive Jews – it is the acceptance of the God of Israel that makes possible a change in his paradigm of royalty. Jews no longer represented the enemy. Israel survived.

      Notes