Nabucco – review

A successful performance of Verdi's Nabucco rests on three principal pillars: the chorus, the conductor and the soprano singing the lung-pumping role of Abigaille. Since the Royal Opera Chorus, Nicola Luisotti in the pit and the formidable Liudmyla Monastyrska are all more than equal to their respective tasks, their continued presence ensures that the many strengths reviewers reported at the start of the run remain solidly in place for Nabucco's final four Covent Garden performances this season. The main continuing doubt concerns Daniele Abbado's production, which sets the Old Testament tale in an awkward 20th-century Holocaust frame.

But it is the arrival of Placido Domingo in the title role that inevitably gives these sold-out performances special allure. In a sense, conventional critical observations do not apply. The mere fact that this great singer, now 72, is moved to immerse himself in yet another new Verdi role is reason enough. Domingo's career, 42 years at Covent Garden and counting, continues to be a wonder of the age.

For the most part, though, allowances are unnecessary. True, Domingo's voice relies more on artfulness, and perhaps also on the prompter, than it once did. True also, his acting is gradually reducing to stock poses and gestures. But that voice is also unmistakably still in very fine order at big moments, and even now Domingo still puts far more into his acting than Pavarotti did even in his prime. The operatic presence remains unique.

And Nabucco suits Domingo's still-tenorial baritone better than some of the other Verdi baritone roles he has attempted. The ringing, dark tone emphasises the flawed but heroic character of the Babylonian king. It means Domingo brings something of Otello to the role, and even, in his despair, a glimpse of the Lear that Verdi longed to write but never did. If only he had known Domingo.

Delayed live cinema screenings on 29 April, broadcast on Radio 3 on 8 June, 6pm.