To judge by the attendance and audience response at the National Concert Hall last night, Vivian Coates's Lyric Opera Productions has identified a market opening and is filling it quite successfully.
Balancing the budget for the enterprise is clearly a challenge, and the production values are not high.
On the open space of the NCH stage (with the orchestra on the floor at the front of the audience) some members of the black-clad chorus in Nabucco looked and moved with distinct unease (dramatic verisimilitude was not always well maintained among the principals either).
Yet, when not suffering from the ragged prominence of some maverick individual voices, the chorus provided - as well they might, in this most choral of operas - some of the best moments of the evening.
John Milne was a grave presence as Zaccaria, Eiran James a sensitive Fenena and Alan Oke a responsive Ismaele.
Tamsin Dives was a rather wild and sometimes shrill Abigaille and Roy Stevens an unsettling Nabucco, with pitching that didn't always please the ear. In smaller roles, Eugene Armstrong was a solid High Priest of Baal, and Matthew Gilsenan an agitated Abdallo.
The man who might have held all of this together, conductor Mario Zambelli, left things on a loose rein. Orchestral lines often became blurred, the general sense of ensemble was slack, and of drama there was unfortunately little.
