Verdi certainly knows how to get the tear-ducts flowing into action, usually for one or both of a pair of doomed young lovers.

But in the case of Simon Boccanegra we weep for two old men, reconciled at the end of a lifetime’s enmity, the eponym already in his death-throes brought about by politically-motivated poisoning.

The plot, though based on historical fact, is risibly complicated, but this performance, imported from the Royal Opera House, diverts all attention from that nonsense, making us concentrate instead upon purely musical values.

And what incredible musical values they are, founded upon the flexible, well-balanced and acutely responsive playing of the ROH Orchestra under the fluid hands of Sir Antonio Pappano (and Verdi’s orchestral writing here is so much more rewarding than the rather workaday vocal writing).

But the soloists wrought magic from the notes Verdi scattered them, headed by those two old codgers referred to earlier. Thomas Hampson drained himself in a generous portrayal as the utterly convincing Boccanegra, pirate turned Doge of Genoa, parent of a child born in sadness, and one who turns out to be the grand-daughter of his arch-rival Fiesco, sung most commandingly and ultimately sympathetically by the wondrous Ferruccio Furlanetto (I regret the many years I have missed hearing him).

That love-child Amelia’s music was floatingly well-sustained by Hibla Gerzmava, and Russell Thomas sang as ringingly as Pavarotti (now that’s saying something) in the role of her suitor Gabriele. There was not a dud in any of the other roles, but I return to the star of the evening - Pappano’s ROH Orchestra, blinking at the world-class venue into which they had been liberated.