Met Music Director James Levine conducts Verdi’s early drama of Ancient Babylon, Nabucco, with Plácido Domingo adding a new role to his repertory as the title character. Liudmyla Monastyrska sings the tour-de-force role of Abigaille, Nabucco’s willful daughter, with Jamie Barton as Fenena, Russell Thomas as Ismaele, and Dmitry Belosselskiy as the prophet Zaccaria, the role of his 2011 Met debut.

Nabucco is the work which brings the 28 year old Giuseppe Verdi to world fame right after its premiere in La Scala in Milan in 1842.  Even then, the chorus of the Hebrew slaves (Va, pensiero sull’ali dorate) turned into a hymn for the revolutionary Italians. Despite many of the described real historical coincidences and personalities, some of the characters are an invention of the librettist Temistocle Solera for the sake of dramatism.

Domingo’s Nabucco offers dignity, courage and charisma.

Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian