Aida review – parades and totalitarianism rather than pyramids and triumphal marches
Rule No 1 of Robert Carsen's Royal Opera production of Aida, revived for the first time since its 2022 debut: forget Egypt. No pharaonic headdresses, no pyramids, no hieroglyphs. This is an Aida with big ideas about the abuse of power and war between nations. We could be anywhere, as long as it is highly militarised. Annemarie Woods' costumes showcase totalitarian chic; only Amneris is allowed, briefly, to stray from the grunge-for-all colour scheme with a bright red tailored number to watch the Triumphal March. Miriam Buether's sets are a series of cavernous concrete bunkers.
Rule No 2 of Carsen's Aida: the work's characteristic spectacle (specifically requested by the Cairo's Khedivial Opera House which commissioned the opera) is almost entirely suppressed. We still hear Verdi's self-consciously 'exotic' dances, but what we see is marching, saluting and table-laying. The Triumphal March becomes a military parade involving an elaborate flag-folding routine. A fleeting passage of livelier choreography to narrate a battle follows hot on the heels of yet more striding around and looks like someone has hit fast-forward on basic video-game graphics.
This is one way to deal with the problems of Aida's ultra-Orientalism today. (Aida is, after all, the opera that eminent postcolonial scholar Edward Said once dismissed as an 'embarrassment'.) Yet this commitment to abstraction introduces a serious schism between staging and score – not just in numerous details of the libretto but, more importantly, in pacing. Verdi was creating opportunities for scenic spectacle to take centre stage. Here it rarely does.
In these circumstances it was unfortunate that musically, this revival can't match the vividness and subtlety of its original outing. The solo singing was of mixed quality. Riccardo Massi was unwell, leaving Jorge de León to step in as warrior-hero Radames – his huge voice set permanently at 'intense' and driving up the volume of even his most intimate interactions with other characters. As his star-crossed lover, Anna Pirozzi's Aida was controlled and dramatic, her soprano cutting cleanly through the densest textures, though by the final scene she sounded exhausted. Raehann Bryce-Davis made an impressive house debut as Aida's romantic rival Amneris, by turns sensual and ferocious, her voice thrilling in its lower reaches if unable to compete, decibel-for-decibel, in the middle of her range. Amartuvshin Enkhbat (Aida's father Amonasro) was instantly authoritative, their father-daughter duet genuinely touching.
Under Daniel Oren, the orchestral ensemble was periodically strained and the score's many shifts of gear were managed largely by step-changes. Despite some beautifully shaped woodwind solos, many of the more delicate passages lacked polish. The Royal Opera Chorus were the stars of this show – the men's voices exquisitely blended and superbly atmospheric in their quiet passages, barely more than murmured.
Until 12 February.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Telegraph
Simon Boccanegra, Grange Park Opera: Simon Keenlyside triumphs in Verdi's smart, sombre masterpiece
Verdi's sombre yet uplifting opera Simon Boccanegra, the story of power struggles and betrayals in 14th-century Genoa, will never be among his most immediately appealing works. But in a production as strong as Grange Park Opera has mounted, with a cast led by the magnificent Simon Keenlyside as the first Doge of Genoa, it accumulates tremendous intensity. David Pountney's vintage staging, with a fine idiomatic Verdi cast, lifts the achievements of Grange Park Opera onto a new level. Pountney's production, billed here as a revival (though the opera has never previously been seen at Grange Park), actually originated over a quarter of a century ago at Welsh National Opera. It is now revived by Robin Tebbutt. No problem there, especially as it has brought with it the outstanding sets by the late Ralph Koltai – bare hanging sheets of metal and mirrors that move, with atmospheric abstract seascapes – all lit to vivid effect by Tim Mitchell. The smell of power is on-stage from the start of the prologue, as the pirate Boccanegra is surprisingly chosen as Doge with the approbation of the crowd. Keenlyside transforms himself, growing in stature and nobility, his voice weaving around Verdi's lyrical baritonal lines with gripping shaping and eloquence. One of the challenges of the score is Verdi's over-reliance on bass voices, but here James Creswell as his rival Feisco (a fine debut here), David Shipley as the popular leader Pietro and Jolyon Loy as Paolo Albani (who poisons Boccanegra) all manage to accumulate great weight, not always avoiding heaviness, but projecting strongly. The only counterweight to this male dominance is the ethereal voice of Amelia Grimaldi, an outstanding debut here by Elin Pritchard. She is revealed as Boccanegra's lost daughter Maria, and their recognition scene is deeply touching, especially when her devoted Gabriele Adorno, sung with stentorian if raw tone by tenor Otar Jorjikia, is overcome with relief at the revelation. The plots turn sour when Adorno is commanded to kill Boccanegra, but Albani's poison has already had its deadly effect, and in the third act the walls close in on the Doge as he fades, nobly blessing all and nominating Adorno as his successor. Verdi had two major attempts at his score: realising that the 1857 version was just too gloomy, he radically revised the piece in 1881. (Mark Elder recently recorded the earlier version.) So there is now a mix of traditional arias, adjusted to provide more continuity, and new ensembles –especially the dramatic Council Chamber scene at the end of Act I. Here the resources of Grange Park, which has limited choral forces, told against the spectacle, which is dominated by a few spiky nobles on stilts. And although conductor Gianluca Marciano drove the score with vigour on Thursday, the playing of the Gascoigne Orchestra isn't yet quite a match for Verdi's ever-subtle accompaniments. However, in assembling such an idiomatic cast in this fine historic staging, Grange Park Opera has raised its game and made a powerful new case for Verdi's score.
The Guardian
26-05-2025
- The Guardian
Simon Boccanegra review – Opera North's staging of Verdi's knotty score is a brooding triumph
'I had to read this libretto six times before I understood any of it,' fumed the great Italian opera scholar Abramo Basevi in 1859. The work that had defeated him? Verdi's opera Simon Boccanegra, based on a play by the same Spanish writer as Il trovatore, the longstanding sitting duck for potshots at contorted opera plots. Even the composer diagnosed Boccanegra as 'too depressing'. Yet he was persuaded to return to his poorly received score, overhauling it with the help of Arrigo Boito (subsequently the librettist of his final operas, Otello and Falstaff). That revised version was a roaring success in 1881 and is staged quite regularly today – although marshalling its heavyweight lineup of principal basses and baritones, with only a single tenor and soprano to leaven the texture, remains a serious challenge. No stranger to those, Opera North has taken Boccanegra as the latest candidate for 'concert staging' treatment, after its success with Wagner in recent years. This performance at Royal Festival Hall was the finale of a tour that has already stopped off at concert halls across the north and midlands. Directed by PJ Harris, the opera's dark doings in Genoa played out across the three 'rooms' of a subtly lit metal frame stretching across the front of the stage, with marble columns, plinths and benches for a touch of civic pomp and banners for rival political factions hanging overhead. In a gesture Basevi would presumably have appreciated, characters wore election-style rosettes to show which side they were on. The 25 years that elapse between the opera's lengthy prologue and its first act saw one character's parka switched for a different vintage anorak and Simon Boccanegra's sailor peacoat swapped for a political leader's shirt and tie. But we were otherwise rooted in a historical no man's land of ill-fitting suits. Some principals inevitably fared better in this bare-bones set-up than others and the opera's tell-don't-show approach demands real singing actors even in a full staging. Alongside energetic vocal performances from baritones Mandla Mndebele and Opera North stalwart Richard Mosley Evans as the tireless plotters Paolo Albiani and Pietro and Andrés Presno's hefty, heartfelt tenor contributions as political rebel turned romantic Gabriele Adorno, the scenes between Roland Wood's sensitive Boccanegra and his long-lost daughter Maria (Sara Cortolezzis, in a promising Opera North debut) stood out as compelling and poignant. They were amply supported by the other stars of this show: Opera North's excellent chorus – which poured down the aisles of the auditorium for an inspired, immersive take on the ever-powerful council chamber scene – and, above all, the orchestra. Onstage throughout with principal guest conductor Antony Hermus, the musicians served up a vivid and intensely committed performance, the strings a gripping, vital dramatic motor.
Times
05-05-2025
- Times
Pimpinone review — Telemann's Royal Opera debut, 300 years later
The Royal Opera has taken a few centuries to stage an opera by Georg Philipp Telemann. With this production of Pimpinone, by the company's Jette Parker Artists at the Linbury Theatre, downstairs at the Royal Opera House, it's a case of one down, 34 to go. And that's just the number of Telemann operas for which manuscripts have survived. He probably wrote more than 50 in all. He really was a one-man factory of baroque music. It's just a pity he delivered quantity more than quality. That said, I'm not sure he is well served by Sophie Gilpin's staging of Pimpinone. Premiered 300 years ago as comic relief between the acts of Handel's tragic Tamerlano, it riffs on the classic Italian comedy
