Music: Pre-Vintage Verdi

"With this opera," said Giuseppe Verdi, "my artistic career has begun." He was speaking of Nabucco, the opera about Nebuchadnezzar that set him at the age of 28 in the top rank of operatic composers. Rarely performed now, even in Italy, Nabucco made only a few brief appearances on the Manhattan stage and then disappeared for nearly a century. Back last week as the curtain raiser for the Metropolitan Opera's 76th season, it proved to be an intriguing if occasionally turgid preview of genius still seeking a proper voice.

Had Nabucco failed at its premiere at La Scala in 1842, chances are...

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