There is a good sense here of the fitness of things, and of their grandeur too. As the camera roves and observes the great arena before the show begins, one becomes probably more aware of its size than if one were there in person with the milling crowds trying to find a seat. For a roof there is the spacious firmament on high, and onstage a structure that might have been designed to fill the Tate Modern. Then, as the opera unfolds, Verdi’s music fills the auditorium and merely human voices rise to their almost superhuman task.

Vocally, and perhaps dramatically, the opera is dominated by Abigaille, an outsize soprano whose music makes harder demands upon voice and technique than almost any comparable role in opera. Guleghina is the Abigaille of our time: powerful, intense, wide of range, agile in passagework, and when need arises capable of softness. If she were completely steady and if her timbre had an Italianate vibrancy and variety of coloration she would be ideal. As Nabucco, the veteran Nucci comes through with impressive authority and stamina, the middle of his voice still rich and ample. I’d always assumed that Nebuchadnezzar, like Esau, was an hairy man, but here he is presented shaven and au naturel as though wig, make-up and full costume had not arrived on time. The High Priest, Zaccaria, the third major character, has one of the great bass roles in the Verdi repertoire: finely sung here by Carlo Colombara, firm, sonorous and noble in bearing.

Of the others, Fabio Sartori deserves mention, physically somewhat cumbersome, vocally full-bodied and incisive. Chorus and orchestra do the arena and its 2007 season credit, and the conductor, Daniel Oren, is well in control of his far-flung forces. The production team also wins its way through to grateful acknowledgment, despite the initial ill-will created by the blocks of scaffolding which suggest nothing more biblical than the local Ikea store in its early stages of construction. It has its uses, which include doing duty for the banks of the Euphrates, from which the Israelites sing (most beautifully) their immortal “Va, pensiero”.