FROM AROUND THE WORLD: NEW YORK CITY.(Review)

Forty years after its only previous Met incarnation, Verdi's Nabucco took the stage again On March 8, this time designed by John Napier (house debut) and staged by Elijah Moshinsky. Nabucco isn't a well-known opera in the U.S., and the old production played it safe, with the sort of pseudo-Biblical visuals that the text and music suggest. The new team takes a Hollywood approach, centering its focus on a massive revolving structure that unnervingly calls to mind the Sphinx of Antony and Cleopatra, which opened the house in 1966 by breaking the stage turntable mechanism. This time, everything went off without incident, and the audience welcomed Nabucco as a hit.

Where Temistocle Solera's libretto calls for several different locations, Napier's edifice basically provides two. On one side, a wall constructed of rough blocks serves for the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem and later for "the banks of the Euphrates." On the other, a towering, faceless figure of the Babylonian god Baal surmounts a steep staircase with a throne partway up; this oppressive pile stands for the palace of the Babylonian rulers.

The wall provides a sort of bleachers on which the chorus faces the audience for "Va, pensiero," the opera's one certifiable hit. In Italy, audiences stand up for this patriotic chorus, which was played at Verdi's memorial service by the forces of La Scala under Arturo Toscanini, and which has become an unofficial national anthem. In New York the opening-night audience didn't stand, but it cheered long enough to produce a rare house encore. The chorus in this number was beautifully lit by Howard Harrison. For nocturnal scenes, torches were used to good effect, but one tired eventually of the simplistic idea that the Israelites dwelled in the light, Babylon in darkness.

The fact that the set took up most of the stage had its acoustical advantages, as when the chorus appeared in that frontal frieze for "Va, pensiero." The solo singers reaped benefits, too, from an auditory point of view. The disadvantages were equally obvious: prominent voices in the chorus stuck out, and the main characters had no way to move except up and down. When Abigaille perched on one of the upper tiers for her big aria and her duet with Nabucco (below her, to show that she had gained the upper hand), there seemed a real danger she might fall off.

Vocal hazards are equally apparent in this role, tailored for Verdi's future wife, Giuseppina Strepponi, when her voice was a shambles. The composer had to resort to showing off the tricks she could still do -- piercing high notes, emphatic low ones, a two-octave leap, scattershot coloratura -- and a cantilena of limited compass, "Anch'io dischiuso un giorno," midway in her solo scene. It's an exciting role, and Maria Guleghina gave it an exciting performance, vocally as uneven as the writing itself, never less than dramatically engaged. In a production that offered so little room for acting, the Belorussian soprano did it all with her voice. In her final repentance scene, far from being the center of dramatic attention for everyone onstage, she was positioned farther away than ever, at the topmost level of the set.

In the only other role of dramatic dimensions, Juan Pons presented a bluff Nabucco, overbearing at first, crestfallen in his imprisonment, touching in his plea to save his condemned daughter Fenena. The production deprived the baritone of his greatest moment, however, when Nabucco proclaims himself God and is struck mad by a bolt of lightning. At this point, the stage simply went dark.

Musically, if not dramatically, the high priest Zaccaria is the most commanding presence onstage, and baritone Samuel Ramey proved himself a voice of authority. Ramey's big, sustained high notes made more effect than the low notes that also pepper the score, especially in his one reflective solo, "Tu sul labbro dei veggenti." In his scenes with the chorus, his lines may not have boomed or rolled, but they flowed with melodic assurance and vibrated with zealous conviction.