Nabucco, Royal Opera House, review: ‘Verdi’s essay on oppression and exile now feels searingly topical’

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To those asking if it’s time Placido Domingo made his final bow, one answer came via the box office: all his performances in the title role of Nabucco are booked solid.

His performance on opening night gave a more nuanced answer, though still in the negative. Domingo’s job in this work is to break our hearts through the power of his transformation from blustering tyrant to paranoid lunatic, to desperate father pleading for the life of his child, and if heart-breaking is too strong a word, he made a very decent stab at it.

His tone at the outset was pinched and hard, but as the emotional disintegration of his character progressed he became both dramatically more convincing, and vocally more expansive, even if he didn’t stray too far from the prompt box. By the time when, purged, he offered up his prayer of thanks to the Jewish god, the lyrical beauty with which we will always associate his voice had returned, inevitably reduced but still glowing.

Meanwhile Daniele Abbado’s austere production of Verdi’s essay on oppression and exile now feels searingly topical, and the other principals are stunning, most notably John Relyea’s warmly resonant Zaccaria and Liudmyla Monstyrska’s astonishing Abigaille, by turns thunderous and intensely sweet. Maurizio Benini conducts with authority.