Shakshuka and Nabucco

Hello everyone, 

In this post, I am going to share my recipe for Shakshuka, and talk about Verdi’s Nabucco!

Shakshuka is a popular israel cuisine that originated from north africa and is becoming a classic breakfast menu all over the world. And Nabucco is Verdi's opera set to Israel’s Babylonian captivity years! 

Well, let’s first cook.

We need tomatoes, onion, mushroom and sausage. And then, we need eegs, cilantro, feta cheese, and some spices. I use cumin, paprika, and cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper but you can use whatever spice you want and make your own version! 

For the tomato, canned tomatoes are preferred for this recipe because they are sweeter than fresh tomatoes. If you use fresh tomatoes, added some sugar to balance the sour taste of fresh tomatoes. 

This is a very easy dish. 

1) We will basically chop all the veggies.

2) Infuse them with the spices with little bit of oil.

3) Put the tomatoes and crush them.

4) When tomatoes are well cooked, add eggs and cook in medium heat until the eggs are softly cooked.

5) Top the dish off with cilantro and feta cheese!

You can watch my YouTube video to see the step by step process of this recipe.

As I said, the synopsis of the opera Nabucco is based on the historical setting of Israel’s babylonian captivity. There are  5 leading characters.

1) The Assyrian king- Nabucco.

2) His first daughter- Abigaille

3) His second daughter- Fenena.

4) A Jewish HIgh priest- Zaccaria

5) The nephew of the King of Israel- Ismael.

There is a love triangle among the young jewish prince and two assyrian princesses. When the jewish prince, Ismael, was a captive in Assyria, Fenena fell in love with him and freed him. They ran away  to Israel together which now makes her the hostage.

However, the older daughter, Abigaille, disguises her soldiers and successfully sneaks into the temple of Israel. 

During the negotiation process between jewish priest and assyrian king, the younger princess was endangered, and the jewish prince frees her out of blinded love. 

Now, the negotiation is over, and Nabucco orders the complete destruction of the temple.

In the second scene, Nabucco is away for a different war, and appoints Fenena as a temporary ruler, but she betrays his trust and frees Israelite slaves back to their lands. Meanwhile, the first princess, Abigaille, comes across a document  that explains secrets of her birth- that she is a daughter of a slave, and not a legitimate bloodline of the throne. While she is experiencing her melt down, the high priest of Baal, Assyrian religion, gets furious about Fenena’s betrayal, and plans to support Abigaille to become the heir of the kingdom. The priest and Abigaille spread the rumor that Nabucco was killed in a battle, and executed a coup d'etat.   

Then Nabucco shows up furious. Out of the betrayal of his two daughters, he declares himself as the only God, not king, and as soon as he declares that, the anger of Israelite’s God strikes him, and he goes mad. 

In the next movement, Abigaille reveals her plans to kill Fenena and imprison Nabucco. Israelites still under the slavery, hold on to the hope of God’s miraculous help.

In the last movement, Nabucco surrenders and repents to the God of Israel when he realizes that Fenena is about to be burnt to death. God gives him the power back, and he frees himself from the prison. Fenena gracefully accepts her fate believing in her salvation by her new religion. Fortunately, Nabucco reclaims his power as the king before her execution, and saves her. 

Abigaille poisons herself and seeks for forgiveness and salvation at the end of her life. Now Nabucco and Fenena are both believers of Israel God, and they free enslaved Israelites back to their land.

Verdi is the leading composer of romantic italian operas. This opera is his third work. He had a big success with his first opera which brought many opportunities into his life including a contract to work with La Scala’s impressio. La Scala is a very prestigious opera house in Milan, and impressio is the proper term for opera scenario writer. However, he experienced failure for his second opera as well as the death of his wife and two infant children. During these dark times, he decided to stop being a composer. However Merrerli, the impressio, pursuated him to continue composing operas, and Nabucco was Verdi’s first comeback composition. It was a huge success leading 60 performances in the second season, and Verdi himself considered this piece as the piece that launched his career. It still remains as a classic of opera repertoire. It’s actually really easy to listen to- Full of romantic and melodic arias, and minimum amount of recitatives. The staging and story are interesting as well, so I highly recommend this opera to anyone who is new to opera listening. 

There is this chorus piece called "Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate" which commonly is referred to as the chorus of hebrew slaves. It sings about the Israelites’ broken heart and love for their homeland. According to Verdi, the lyrics of this piece was what inspired him to decide to get back to composition with this opera. Also, the piece was associated with Italy’s unification process which verdi openly supported. When the 9/11 terrorist attack happened, Metropolitan Opera, the opera house in New York city, opened its season, which was 11 days after 9/11, by signing this chorus. 

So.. that’s Nabucco!

In my YouTube Video, you can listen through this story more easily!

Thank you for spending time with me today, and I will see you in the next post!!