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NABUCODONOSOR

TEATRO ALLA SCALA - MILAN

For Teatro alla Scala's new production of Nabucco, Gary McCann's design explores the collision between earthly power and spiritual aspiration through two competing architectural worlds. At the centre of the concept is the opposition between Babylon and Jerusalem: one society devoted to technological achievement, imperial ambition and material splendour, the other defined by faith, memory and a longing for the divine.

The scenic design is built around two monumental structures: a vast 16-metre-wide dome inspired by the Temple of Solomon via the Pantheon in Rome, and a 10-metre-high Tower of Babel which references both Tatlin's Monument to the Third International and the Eiffel Tower.

The dome becomes a vessel for multiple meanings throughout the opera: a sacred space, a ruined civilisation, a monument to human resilience and, ultimately, a vision of redemption. Video mapping across its immense geometric surfaces allows it to transform continuously, reflecting the shifting fortunes of the Hebrew people. Suspended above the stage, it dominates the visual landscape, appearing at different moments as architecture, memory and celestial presence. What begins as a damaged relic of a lost civilisation is gradually restored, the dome finally reassembling in Act IV as an image of faith renewed and hope restored.

The production imagines Babylon as a civilisation of extraordinary sophistication, viewed through a nineteenth-century lens. Its culture is technologically advanced, confident and relentlessly expansionist. In contrast to the spiritual values of the Hebrews, Babylon's achievements emerge from the earth itself. The Tower rises from beneath the stage like a giant mechanical drill spiralling upwards through the floor. Nabucco makes his first entrance aboard a spectacular chariot formed from three automated silver horses, an image of imperial power driven by engineering rather than mythology. Throughout the production, monumental mechanical forms suggest a society fuelled by innovation, conquest and human ambition.

Architectural motifs repeatedly draw the eye heavenwards, reinforcing the opera's central tension between temporal authority and spiritual belief. Both societies seek transcendence, but by radically different means: Jerusalem through faith, Babylon through construction.

A deliberate contrast exists between scenery and costume. The scenic environment is stark, architectural and industrial in character, creating an intentionally restrained framework within which the costumes can flourish. McCann's costume designs embrace the extravagance and ceremonial richness of Babylonian court life, drawing on influences ranging from ancient Mesopotamian iconography to Austro-Hungarian imperial splendour and twentieth-century theatrical fantasy. Gold embroidery, sculptural silhouettes, elaborate military detailing and luxurious textiles create a society intoxicated by its own magnificence.

This contrast between opulent costume and austere architecture reflects the instability at the heart of Babylon itself. The grandeur of the court appears almost as a decorative skin stretched across an increasingly fragile civilisation. At the climax of Act II, when Nabucco declares himself a god in his ultimate act of hubris, the Tower erupts in pyrotechnics, transforming a symbol of human achievement into an image of impending collapse.

Rather than treating Nabucco as a purely historical spectacle, the production presents the opera as a timeless meditation on civilisation, belief and identity. The competing worlds of Babylon and Jerusalem become archetypes: one grounded in human achievement, the other in spiritual endurance. Through architecture, costume and scale, the design transforms Verdi's early masterpiece into a reflection on forces that continue to shape societies today — the eternal tension between what humanity can build and what it chooses to believe.