"There was some robust and rowdy singing in the Chorus pro Musica's concert performance of Verdi's "Nabucco" Sunday afternoon, but the stars of the show were the chorus, the orchestra, conductor Jeffrey Rink, and Giuseppe Verdi, whose youthful genius burst into flame with this piece.... The music is vigorous, violent, sometimes coarse, but few composers before this had written anything surging with this kind of energy, this flowering of melody - the chorus "Va, pensiero" almost immediately became an unofficial anthem for the Italian nation that was coming into existence.  ... On Sunday, it was nobly and sympathetically sung by the Chorus pro Musica under Rink, and the conductor (like James Levine at the Met and the touring Teatro Lirico d'Europa in the Emerson Majestic last season) permitted an immediate encore.   Verdi's whole score was vigorously and sensitively played from flutist Julia Scolnik, cellist Ronald Lowry and his section, and English hornist Barbara LaFitte.   Rink once again proved himself an expert and stylish Verdi conductor - propulsive, yet also supportive of his cast and at home in the world of give-and-take."   ... Richard Dyer, Boston Globe

"A spectacular performance by soprano Joanna Porackova, sonorous ones by baritone Roy Stevens and bass Mikhail Svetlov plus the powerful leadership of conductor Jeffrey Rink all came together to make Verdi's opera "Nabucco" crackle with excitement yesterday afternoon at Jordan Hall. ... Porackova triumphed in the next-to-impossisble role of Abigaille. Her voice's bronze-tinged timbre and seemingly limitless power guaranteed that her portrayal of the power-hungry slave ... would be a dramatic force to reckon with."    T.J. Medrek Boston Herald