Latest news with #GiuseppeVerdi
Daily Maverick
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
Not your grandmother's Aida — Verdi's great work gets a science fiction spin
Cape Town Opera delivers a superb production of one of opera's true classics, Aida. This production reimagines the setting in an African futurist time and landscape. The Cape Town Opera's production of Giuseppe Verdi's classic opera Aida, now on at the Artscape Theatre until 31 May, receives a dramatic, modern spin, even as it stays faithful to the music and story of this great work. Sometimes operas can be overly fancy with the plots and subplots (and the music to go with such wrinkles and complications). But as conductor Kamal Khan explained to me, Aida is, at its heart, a simple story of a love triangle that goes way off track — but embedded in a struggle between two warring nations, along with espionage and international betrayals thrown in to give the storyline extra energy. Aida's origin story begins in the 1860s as the Egyptian khedive Isma'il Pasha was determined to make his heretofore recumbent nation, which had been an Ottoman satrapy for hundreds of years — but one with an extraordinarily long history of its civilisation — into an avatar of modernisation and a model for Africa and Asia. This was taking place just before the explosion of European colonisation in Africa and Asia that occurred from the 1880s onward. As the fates would have it, Egypt was becoming increasingly prosperous from its exports of fine quality cotton to European mills because of the American Civil War and the blockade of Confederate ports by the Union Navy that prevented cotton from being exported. Moreover, the French were constructing the Suez Canal on the edges of Egyptian territory, linking the Mediterranean and Red seas. This canal promised to give rise to faster, safer sea transport between Europe and South and East Asia — once ships began transiting the canal from 1870. And so, what's a khedive to do in the face of all of this excitement and progress? The right answer is to commission an opera from one of the world's finest composers, someone whose music would highlight Egypt's vast historical panorama and glorious past, and simultaneously mark Egypt's emergence as a wannabe modern power. Why not! Initially somewhat reluctant, Verdi eventually accepted the commission and produced one of the grandest of 19th-century grand operas. The work almost instantly became part of the repertoires of opera companies around the world. Productions have taken place somewhere around the globe every year since it premiered in 1871 in Cairo in Egypt's new opera house, and then in its European premiere in Milan, Italy. The Cairo production had been held up by the Franco-Prussian War as the costumes and sets were being fabricated in France. The Egypt of Aida is remarkably different from Mozart's Egypt in The Magic Flute. The latter is all about philosophical mysteries and Masonic symbols in an imaginary Egypt. By contrast, Verdi's Egypt came 70 years after Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, the discovery and successful translation of hieroglyphics via the Rosetta Stone, and the beginnings of serious archaeology. Verdi's Egypt was based, at least in part, on those early discoveries and interpretations of the culture of Egypt, transposed into the 19th-century operatic form. Of course, there are more recent operas situated in Africa, such as Philip Glass' Akhnaten and his Satyagraha, both John Adams' and Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, and one of the earliest operas, Dido and Aeneas, which takes place in Carthage in North Africa. South African composers, meanwhile, have created several operas about Nelson Mandela and one about Winnie Mandela, the precedent-setting 'Princess Magogo', as well as a clutch of short, one-act works ranging from the recording of Khoi-san legends to the death of Chris Hani. There certainly are a couple of seasons' worth of operas connected to Africa in this mix. The plot Aida's plot is pretty straightforward. Amneris, the princess of Egypt, is in love with Radames, a general. Meanwhile, Radames is head-over-heels in love with Aida, an Ethiopian princess, captured in a previous war, who is now a slave to Amneris. The Egyptians and Ethiopians are soon at war with each other yet again, and Radames is eventually selected as the general to lead the Egyptian army. He is a success, and the pharaoh promises him anything he desires. To the pharaoh's surprise, Radames' wish is to allow the Ethiopian POWs to go free, including, it turns out, Aida's father. This is not going to end well. Soon enough, Radames is trapped into betraying state secrets to the Ethiopian leader, who is waiting to meet his daughter, Aida, by the banks of the Nile. The Ethiopian's goal is to use his daughter's love for Radames to get him to compromise himself. Sure enough, Radames accidentally discloses the direction of the march by the Egyptian forces in their next attack — a security breach that lands him in enormous trouble (unlike US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth), given that it is a treasonous offence to betray military secrets. Then, when the secrets are compromised, Amneris attempts to get Radames' sentence commuted if he will marry her, but to no avail since he will not renounce his love for Aida. Thus, it is off to the tomb below the temple for him for a gruesome death, as there will be no escape from his incarceration. Astonishingly, though, Aida has hidden herself in that same tomb, and so they die together, professing a hopeless love for each other. Amneris, meanwhile, is left to bewail the reality that the man she loves is about to die. Along the way, the opera has two of the greatest marches in operatic history. Listen to the Triumphal March from Act 2: It includes some big dance moments, and great arias like Celeste Aida — which pretty much describes what the title says the opera is supposed to be about. Listen to Luciano Pavarotti singing this famous aria: There is also Leontyne Price's famous performance of O Patria Mia: Science fiction Almost every production of Aida has monumental, ancient Egyptian sets filled with pyramids and costumes to match. Some productions have even had live elephants, cheetahs and lions on stage — especially when they have been done in outdoor arenas. But this production is different. Artistic director Magdalene Minnaar has elected to turn this Aida into a production based on 'African futurism'. The sets have uncanny echoes of some signature science fiction films and television serials — Fritz Lang's trailblazing film Metropolis, but also Dune, The Time Tunnel, those Dwayne Johnson Scorpion films, and Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, among others. If you watch closely, there is a moment that echoes the denizens of the Star Wars cantina. The Egyptian soldiers owe something of their style to Star Trek's Borg or, perhaps, the clone warriors of the Star Wars universe — with their glowing red-laser pointer eyes. Minnaar admits she had a love of science fiction as a teen and still has a fascination with Dune — and her animation designers are said to share the same feelings. In this Aida there are no pyramids, temples, massive statues or sphinxes, but there is a mysterious ascending and descending, glowing triangle floating in space — perhaps a subtle reference to that Masonic business Mozart used in his Egyptian opera, maybe the pyramids, or perhaps a reachback to the idea that Aida is really about a love triangle gone really, really bad. The priests, to give Radames the edge in fighting the Ethiopians, offer him their blessings, and then hand him a magical weapon for the upcoming battle with the Ethiopians that is almost certainly meant to be some kind of nuclear device. Moreover, the backdrop often features stylised representations of atomic nuclei and mathematical equations, as well as planets in orbit around the Sun. This production is not your grandmother's Aida with the elephants and Egyptian symbols. This is a reimagining with a vengeance, even if, amazingly, none of this re-situating does damage to score, story or Antonio Ghislanzoni's libretto. Precision and dynamism In this production, conductor Kamal Khan brought precision and a dynamism to the entire performance, while the chorus, trained by Antoinette Huyssen, was uniformly excellent. The leads on opening night — Nobulumko Mngxekeza as Aida, Nonhlanhla Yende as Amneris, and Lukhanyo Moyake as Radames, and supporting cast members Conroy Scott as Amonasro, Garth Delport as the Egyptian king, Lonwabo Mose as Ramfis, Van Wyk Venter as the royal messenger and Khayakazi Madlala as the high priestess — all sang beautifully. Offering any criticisms seems almost churlish. While most of the costuming was exciting, Aida's was the least effective from among the leads, especially in comparison to Amneris' unorthodox make-up and costumes (with a possible reachback to Grace Jones). While Mngxekeza's singing was superb, her and Radames' love for each other seemed a bit pallid in its physical expression, in contrast to Amneris' clear obsession with her hero and would-be husband. Finally, choreographer Gregory Maqoma's innovative movements for the dancers from the Jazzart Dance Theatre could serve the opera's action even better if their entrances integrated them more smoothly into the ongoing action, as opposed to almost separate set pieces. Maqoma is well known for his precision of movement in his works, but his decision to allow the dancers to act more individually and naturally might be refined still further. On the whole, these are small criticisms of an ambitious, beautifully sung production. Verdi is said to have responded to a newspaper reporter's question about what his theory of opera was, with the words, 'The seats should be filled.' Artscape's seats for this opera should be filled by anyone who wants to stretch their musical experiences — or just enjoy a really fine production. One final word about Verdi. He was not just a first-tier composer. He was a politician and served as a senator in the new Italian state, post-1870. One of his lasting contributions was to spearhead musical education for everyone — in part, at least, to ensure concert seats were full. His efforts should be echoed in contemporary South Africa — this is a country in which music plays such an important part in so many people's lives, after all. DM
Local Italy
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Local Italy
What's on in Italy: 11 unmissable events to look forward to this summer
Arena Opera Festival, Verona - June 13th-September 6th Every year the Verona Arena, an ancient Roman amphitheatre built in 30 AD, hosts one of Italy's most prestigious opera festivals. The festival celebrated its centenary in 2023, one hundred years after the first performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida was staged within its walls, and shows no signs of slowing down. This season opera buffs will have the opportunity to see performances of Nabucco, Carmen, Rigoletto and Carmina Burana, among other classics. You can find the full 2025 calendar here. Luminara of San Ranieri, Pisa - June 16th The Tuscan city of Pisa celebrates its patron saint's day by lighting up dozens of buildings with a magical display consisting of over 100,000 wax candles perched on wooden supports known as biancherie. The evening is topped off with a fireworks show and is followed the next day with the Palio di San Ranieri, in which crews of rowers from the city's four districts race down the Arno and must climb a 10-metre pole to claim the winner's flag. Calcio Storico final, Florence - June 24th The annual Calcio Storico tournament is one of Florence's most hotly-anticipated summer events. Calcio Storico (or historical football) is an early – and very violent – form of football that originated during the Middle Ages in Italy. It combines elements of modern-day rugby, football and wrestling. Every year, Tuscany's capital sees four teams, each representing a different city district, battle it out to be crowned the champions. The semi-finals take place in early June, while the final match is held on the feast day of the city's patron saint, John the Baptist, on June 24th. A medieval pageant will make its way through the city's streets from Piazza Santa Maria Novella to Piazza della Signoria at around 4pm on the day of the final, with the final set to start at 6pm. The day is usually rounded off with a fireworks display over River Arno. Festival of the Two Worlds, Spoleto - June 27th-July 13th The 68th edition of the Festival dei Due Mondi (or Festival of the Two Worlds) in Spoleto, Umbria, will feature an extensive programme of dance, music, opera and theatre performances. Founded by Italian composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958, the festival was originally held in conjunction with a similar event in Charleston, South Carolina, with the intention of marrying the 'two worlds' of American and European culture. You can find the full 2025 events calendar here. Palio di Siena, Siena - July 2nd and August 16th The Palio di Siena is one of the most popular horse races in the world, with Siena's 17 contrade districts competing against each other in an intense race held in the city's oval-shaped Piazza del Campo. First held in 1633, the Palio takes place twice a year: on July 2nd and August 16th. The July Palio is called Palio di Provenzano, while the August one is known as Palio dell'Assunta as a homage to the Assumption of Mary, celebrated by the Catholic Church on August 15th. Horses pictured during the final lap of Italy's Palio di Siena on July 2nd, 2022. Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP A number of events are held in the three days preceding the race, including several trial runs and the momentous tratta (draw), where each competing contrada is randomly assigned a horse. On the day of the Palio, a parade made up of nearly 700 participants dressed in historical costumes enchants the public just before the start of the race. Ravello Festival, Ravello, Campania - July 6th-August 25th Among the highlights of the Italian summer is the Ravello Festival, a packed programme of open-air classical music performances held on the terrace of Villa Rufolo, a 13th-century villa overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. This year's festival will see world-famous musicians and conductors perform music by Wagner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, among others. The 2025 edition will close out on August 25th with a performance from the UK's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Perched some 350 metres above sea level, Ravello's elevation provides some welcome relief from the summer heat. If you're in the town this summer, make sure to visit Villa Cimbrone's landscaped gardens, which offer unique views of the Amalfi Coast. Umbria Jazz Festival, Perugia - July 11th-20th One of Europe's leading jazz festivals, Umbria Jazz has both a summer and a winter edition, with this year's summer festival set to run from July 11th to July 20th Herbie Hancock, Mitch Woods, Mark Turner and Isaiah Collier are some of the international acts set to make an appearance in 2025. You can find this year's full programme here. Festa del Redentore, Venice - July 18th-20th Held every year on the third Sunday of July, Venice's Festa del Redentore (Feast of the Redeemer) commemorates the end of a plague that decimated Venice's population, killing as many as 46,000 residents between 1575 and 1576. A number of events take place on the weekdays preceding the feast itself, including the construction of a floating walkway connecting Venice to the nearby Giudecca island. Celebrations traditionally kick off on Saturday afternoon, punctuated by a 40-minute fireworks display over the lagoon's waters at around 11.30pm. Ferragosto, nationwide - August 15th Ferragosto is by far Italy's biggest summer holiday, unofficially marking the peak of the country's vacation season. Though it is celebrated on the same day as the Catholic holiday of the Assumption of Mary, Ferragosto has pagan roots. A view of Monterosso beach, in Italy's Cinque Terre National Park, on August 13th, 2024. Photo by MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP Its origins are in the Feriae Augusti, festivals introduced by Roman emperor Augustus in 18 BC to celebrate the end of the harvest season and give farmers a period of rest after the hard labour of the previous weeks. Despite being one of Italy's most important holidays, Ferragosto is typically a low-key affair, with most Italians celebrating by taking off the week around the feast and heading to the beach or the mountains. That said, some towns around the country generally stage processions where a statue of the Virgin Mary is carried through the streets or, in seaside villages, along the shoreline in a boat. Notte della Taranta, Melpignano, Puglia - August 23rd One of the most hotly-anticipated events of Puglia's summer is the Notte della Taranta. It's a night of high-energy pizzica – a folk dance believed to have originated from the legend that anyone bitten by a tarantula would have to dance in a frenzy for days to flush out the venom. This year's edition will take place in the town of Melpignano, just outside Lecce. I Suoni delle Dolomiti, Trentino - August 27th-October 4th Once you've soaked up all the August sun Italy's coast has to offer, why not see out the end of the summer by heading up north to the Trentino Dolomites to experience live music performances immersed in nature? The staggered music festival The Sounds of the Dolomites takes place in different locations around the Alpine region – from alpine meadows and pastures to mountain huts. This year's programme features a variety of musical genres, including classical, jazz, world music, folk and pop. Most performances are free of charge, though reaching the venues often involves hiking or using shuttle services, which are not included and must be paid for separately.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Watching Opera on a Jumbotron
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic's archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here. The first time I watched an opera on a screen was in the Dallas Cowboys football stadium. My mom and I picked our way to the front over sparsely filled plastic seats—the bleachers had a hollowed-out, cheerless feel—and settled in for the show, where a simulcast of Turandot played across a 1.2-million-pound jumbotron more familiar with instant replays and fan-cam footage. It was a spectacularly underwhelming experience. Most opera fans aren't exactly awed by the beauty of the broadcast version, but the practice is still worthwhile, particularly as a way to increase accessibility to the art form (and, frankly, to keep it alive). Televising opera was first proved possible on the small screen in the 1940s—before that, it was broadcast to loyal audiences over the radio—and continues today through the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD and Live at Home programs, which stream performances to movie theaters and living rooms, respectively. The New York opera house has approximately 650,000 yearly visitors, but Live in HD opera streams reached nearly 1 million people last season. These programs hope to reach you even if you're 'on assignment in Antarctica.' It's hard to argue with that. But as persistent as the desire to televise opera is the debate over whether—and how—to do it. In 1983, the critic Lloyd Schwartz opined about 'Opera on Television' for The Atlantic, calling it 'virtually a self-contradiction: the most grandiose, elaborate form of entertainment this side of the Ringling Brothers (not always this side, either) diminished by the most intimate, reductive medium of transmission.' The Met telecast its first complete performance in 1948, collaborating with ABC to bring Giuseppe Verdi's Otello to more than 1 million viewers. They brought the works: long-range shots, close-up shots (those front-row seats didn't stand a chance!), and even the rare backstage moment. It was a success in many ways, but not enough to stop the critic John Crosby from noting that 'the Metropolitan's great roster contains some of the worst actors, and actresses on earth,' and that 'by Hollywood standards,' the Met's female performers 'are not likely to drive Betty Grable out of the pin-up business.' Crosby understood that live audiences were willing to 'overlook these failings,' and he predicted that television audiences might do the same. But imperfections may be harder for modern TV audiences, with their expectations of cleanly edited, smoothly run perfection, to ignore. Live audiences, however, understand that the most important component of an opera is not the acting or the visual charm of the soloists—Maria Callas comes around only once a century—but the singing. The composer David Schiff mused in The Atlantic in 1999 about what keeps opera magical in the age of movies: Opera combines storytelling and spectacle in ways that rarely achieve the state of fusion we take for granted at the movies. Only die-hard film fans go to a bad movie to catch a great cameo performance, but opera-lovers do the equivalent all the time, knowing that a few moments of vocal bliss are more important than an evening of credible acting or striking 'production values.' Seeing the seams is part of live performance's charm—it asks the audience to actively participate in the suspension of reality, as opposed to having it ready-made for them. Broadcast opera retains some of that immediacy, but without the magic of a live performance, it's harder to forgive its failings. Watching the machinations of the orchestra down in the pit or waiting for the curtains to go up all serve to remind us that 'we're 'at the opera,'' Schwartz wrote, 'watching not only the work but an event, a document of a particular performance.' Knowing that you can experience a moment only once—and being unable to relive it—is a rarity in today's world. Live opera reminds us that capturing also entails destroying, and that sometimes the ephemeral is meant to be just that. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Watching Opera on a Jumbotron
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic 's archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here. The first time I watched an opera on a screen was in the Dallas Cowboys football stadium. My mom and I picked our way to the front over sparsely filled plastic seats—the bleachers had a hollowed-out, cheerless feel—and settled in for the show, where a simulcast of Turandot played across a 1.2-million-pound jumbotron more familiar with instant replays and fan-cam footage. It was a spectacularly underwhelming experience. Most opera fans aren't exactly awed by the beauty of the broadcast version, but the practice is still worthwhile, particularly as a way to increase accessibility to the art form (and, frankly, to keep it alive). Televising opera was first proved possible on the small screen in the 1940s—before that, it was broadcast to loyal audiences over the radio—and continues today through the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD and Live at Home programs, which stream performances to movie theaters and living rooms, respectively. The New York opera house has approximately 650,000 yearly visitors, but Live in HD opera streams reached nearly 1 million people last season. These programs hope to reach you even if you're ' on assignment in Antarctica.' It's hard to argue with that. But as persistent as the desire to televise opera is the debate over whether—and how—to do it. In 1983, the critic Lloyd Schwartz opined about 'Opera on Television' for The Atlantic, calling it 'virtually a self-contradiction: the most grandiose, elaborate form of entertainment this side of the Ringling Brothers (not always this side, either) diminished by the most intimate, reductive medium of transmission.' The Met telecast its first complete performance in 1948, collaborating with ABC to bring Giuseppe Verdi's Otello to more than 1 million viewers. They brought the works: long-range shots, close-up shots (those front-row seats didn't stand a chance!), and even the rare backstage moment. It was a success in many ways, but not enough to stop the critic John Crosby from noting that 'the Metropolitan's great roster contains some of the worst actors, and actresses on earth,' and that 'by Hollywood standards,' the Met's female performers 'are not likely to drive Betty Grable out of the pin-up business.' Crosby understood that live audiences were willing to 'overlook these failings,' and he predicted that television audiences might do the same. But imperfections may be harder for modern TV audiences, with their expectations of cleanly edited, smoothly run perfection, to ignore. Live audiences, however, understand that the most important component of an opera is not the acting or the visual charm of the soloists—Maria Callas comes around only once a century—but the singing. The composer David Schiff mused in The Atlantic in 1999 about what keeps opera magical in the age of movies: Opera combines storytelling and spectacle in ways that rarely achieve the state of fusion we take for granted at the movies. Only die-hard film fans go to a bad movie to catch a great cameo performance, but opera-lovers do the equivalent all the time, knowing that a few moments of vocal bliss are more important than an evening of credible acting or striking 'production values.' Seeing the seams is part of live performance's charm—it asks the audience to actively participate in the suspension of reality, as opposed to having it ready-made for them. Broadcast opera retains some of that immediacy, but without the magic of a live performance, it's harder to forgive its failings. Watching the machinations of the orchestra down in the pit or waiting for the curtains to go up all serve to remind us that 'we're 'at the opera,'' Schwartz wrote, 'watching not only the work but an event, a document of a particular performance.' Knowing that you can experience a moment only once—and being unable to relive it—is a rarity in today's world. Live opera reminds us that capturing also entails destroying, and that sometimes the ephemeral is meant to be just that.
South China Morning Post
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Passion and schmaltz in Hong Kong chamber music festival finale
Published: 5:15pm, 27 Jan 2025 Regular Hong Kong concertgoers know the annual Beare's Premiere Music Festival serves up a feast of the finest chamber music performances, played on some of the rarest stringed instruments in existence. The 2025 festival, which also featured talks, masterclasses, exhibitions, educational outreach programmes and open rehearsals, wrapped up on January 22 with a concert titled 'La Belle Époque'. This was a period of enlightenment and cultural innovation in late 19th century France, and one in which most of the concert's repertoire was composed. The event offered not only passion-fuelled performances but the chance to compare the sounds of two outstanding ensembles back to back, the Verona Quartet and the Sitkovetsky Trio. The Verona Quarter (from left) Jonathan Ong, Dorothy Ro, Jonathan Dormand and Abigail Rojansky play opera composer Giuseppe Verdi's lone string quartet, the opening work in concert 'La Belle Époque', the finale of the 2025 Beare's Premiere Music Festival, at Hong Kong City Hall. Photo: Kenny Cheung/Premiere Performances of Hong Kong The opening work, Giuseppe Verdi's String Quartet in E minor from 1873, is a rare non-operatic work by this composer, written on a whim when he had time on his hands after the postponement of the Naples premiere of his opera Aida .
