Verdi: Aida -- Royal Opera House [DVD]

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Aida – Elena Stikhina, Radamès – Francesco Meli, Amneris – Agnieszka Rehlis, Amonasro – Ludovic Tézier, Ramfis – Soloman Howard, King of Egypt – In Sung Sim, High Priestess – Francesca Chiejina, Messenger – Andrés Presno; Director – Robert Carsen, Conductor – Sir Antonio Pappano, Set Designer – Miriam Buether, Costume Designer – Annemarie Woods, Lighting Designers – Robert Carsen and Peter van Praet, Choreographer – Rebecca Howell, Video Designer – Duncan McLean, Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House. The autumn season of Jamiel Devernay-Laurence’s Ballet Nights reaches its Grande Finale (26/11/2023)

There’s an enduring story that the premiere of Verdi’s Aida featured a dozen elephants in Act 2’s triumphal procession. Disappointingly that’s a myth, but there’s at least one of them still lurking in the room now whenever an opera company takes on the work, one that gets bigger and wrinklier with the years: how to stage today an “exotic” story of Egypt and Ethiopia, seen through 19th-century Italian eyes? But the whole was so much more than the sum of its parts thanks to Elder’s sure direction, delivering real, spine-tingling grandeur in the choral scenes while balancing chorus and orchestra impeccably. In this, his penultimate annual season at Covent Garden before moving to the London Symphony Orchestra, it is tempting to reach out and beg him to stay. Drawing stirring ensemble playing and intimate solos from the orchestra, he is also superbly served by the strong and immaculate chorus, always on parade or on manoeuvres and rejoicing in violence, even as interpreted in dance by choreographer Rebecca Howell. In her drab beige pinafore, by contrast, it is through the gleaming soprano voice of Russia soprano Elena Stikhina that Aida shines. Her musical phrasing and utmost control is all the colour she needs to make a big impression.The Radames of SeokJong Baek was ringing and resonant, though Verdi’s two-dimensional character remained flat. As Aida, the American soprano Angel Blue was at times uneven vocally, but her natural, compelling stage presence won out. Reprising their roles. Ludovic Tézier showed pain and anger as Aida’s father, Amonasro, and Soloman Howard was calm and masterly as Ramfis, The ROH chorus (directed by William Spaulding) showed their world-class skill.

ON’s Masque of Might with its message of impending environmental catastrophe has a significant impact (21/11/2023) Miriam Buether's set and Annemarie Woods’ costume designs emphasise the drab uniformity of a totalitarian state. Infatuation with the national flag is ever the hallmark of the shallow or insecure. Here, only the ubiquitous blue, red and white of the warmongers, plus their military regalia, punctuate shades of grey. Cross-cultural impulses inspire the opening concert of Hong Kong Musicus Society’s 2023 festival (28/11/2023) Carsen’s wish to show the destruction of the individual by the apparatus of the state is powerfully fulfilled by the three principals. Francesco Meli is an upright, proud Radamès, very much a man of patriotism and integrity, but convincingly humbled by love. His tenor reached strongly to the top, but sometimes without nuance, though he paced his performance effectively. As Aida, Elena Stikhina gave an astonishingly insightful portrait of emotional suffering and inner conflict. This was not a showy performance, and at first I wondered if her soprano would rise above the resounding orchestral forces, but she saved her vocal intensity for the latter stages of the opera where it made a tremendously affecting impression. Rarely has torment and anguish sounded so sweet. Agnieszka Rehlis’s Amneris transformed persuasively from a spoilt, contemptuous schemer to a woman rent apart by despair when her pleading with the priests fails to save Radamès from his fate.Carsen sweeps it all aside in this stark, contemporary vision of the piece, which despite its slightly wearying design arrives smartly at the dramatic nexus of Verdi’s grand operas: love and politics failing to add up, and a sense of horror about what people in love with war will do to each other. His production replaces that of David McVicar, which was notable for its gory procession in Act two, putting in its place something more abstract and chilling. Insula’s Sky Burial at the Barbican is a stunning evening, unique, and vitally important (22/11/2023) With its glamorous Egyptian setting, complete with exotic animals in some spectacular productions, Verdi’s Aida has become a defining grand opera.

The safety of our visitors, staff and artists is still our priority. There are hand sanitiser stations throughout the building. To help us provide a comfortable experience for everyone, please be mindful of others and their personal space. Does it work? Yes and no. Verdi wrote an opera that was to be full of spectacle, and if you take the visual oohs and ahhs away then there are stretches of music that no longer have much reason to be there, yet still need filling. That’s how come we have to watch the women painstakingly laying a table, and to wait while every single soldier salutes the returning Radames, one by one. Ferocity and heartbreak’: Elīna Garanča, right, as Amneris, with Angel Blue in the title role, in the Royal Opera’s Aida. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian In many ways, Aida is bound up with contemporary history, however. When Ismail Pasha, the new Viceroy of Egypt, arrived in Paris to represent his country at the Exposition universelle in June 1867, the Egyptian pavilion that he had erected on a large corner of the Champs de Mars – featuring, among myriad things, a pharaoh’s temple, a modern-day bazaar, and a panorama of the Isthmus of Suez created by the Suez Canal company – was described by one French commentator as ‘a living Egypt, a picturesque Egypt, the Egypt of Ismail Pasha’. His lavish spectacle was almost certainly designed to present Egypt as a major player on the modern world stage, and this idea also lay behind his commission, two years later, of Verdi’s Aida, which was to be performed in Cairo’s first opera house, positioned beside the recently opened Suez Canal. Love across the divide comes in the form of an illicit relationship between an Egyptian officer, Radames, and the daughter of his enemy’s leader, the Aida of the title. Radames is also pursued by his ruler’s daughter, whose hand he is offered in exchange for good service.

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Verdi’s work, premiered in Cairo in 1871, rises to a majestic climax in the celebrated triumphal march of Act 2. This is where you put the elephants if you have them; horses and lions too, if you fancy. The challenge is how to sustain the drama after all that spectacle without it being an anticlimax. In Carsen’s staging, the spoils are not living creatures but Egypt’s own dead. Coffins are removed one by one, a disturbing reversal of this scene’s usual additive, trophy-on-trophy process. The second half ebbs to an intimate finale, with a score of orchestral subtlety and invention that points towards masterpieces yet to come, namely Don Carlos and Otello. Pappano, and the ROH musicians, opened our ears to Verdi’s genius, through pacing, texture, balance. It is 20 years since Sir Antonio Pappano was first named music director of the Royal Opera House, then the youngest person to have held this post. Two decades later, audiences know that in the Italian repertoire in particular the orchestra and chorus of the Royal Opera are in hands not only expert but thoughtful, passionate and kind. Mark Elder, conducting, seems to have Verdi pumping through his veins. This was his night. He steered the epic moments as well as the subtle, spare scoring of the intimate passages, every moment steeped in maximum drama. Aida devotees will rail against the production – not generally liked much when it was new – and the liberties taken with the plot (I don’t remember Verdi specifying a table-laying scene). But Carsen’s interpretation gives the characters definition and clarity. As one who has always struggled with this work, I found it illuminating.

Finding myself with an hour to kill before a performance of Robert Carsen’s new production of Aida at the Royal Opera House earlier this week, I settled down in a small bar in Covent Garden with a glass of wine and a copy of If Not Critical ­– an edition of ten lectures by Eric Griffiths which were originally delivered at the Faculty of English at Cambridge University. ‘A rehearsal of Hamlet’ begins with reflections on the various small changes to the title of Shakespeare’s play – ‘Revenge’, ‘Tragedie’ and ‘True Chronicle Historie’ appeared in turn in early printings – leading Griffiths to reflect on the play’s genre and more generally on the critical opinion in Shakespeare’s time about the boundary between history and poetry. Drawing on Aristotle’s Poetics, he suggests, ‘History tells us what in fact happened, poetry lays out the pattern according to which we could have seen the events coming’. Dancers Bradley Applewhaite, Eamonn Cox, Nolan Edwards, Cameron Everitt, Tristan Ghostkeeper, Martin Harding, Vincent Merouze, Chris Otim, Anthony Pereira, Dominic Rocca, Trevor Schoonraad Christian Thielemann to become new General Music Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (27/09/2023)

Glossary

The artist who represents his country and his time becomes necessarily universal in the present and in the future.’ So Verdi wrote to the Neapolitan painter Domenico Morelli on 27 th February 1871. One hundred and fifty years later, while not everything in this production comes off, Robert Carsen’s Aida might be said to illuminate the rightness of the composer’s words.