Verdi: Aida -- Royal Opera House [DVD]

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In this new production, director Robert Carsen situates Verdi’s large-scale political drama within a contemporary world, framing its power struggles and toxic jealousies in the apparatus of a modern, totalitarian state. Last Updated on May 20, 2023 Stellar performances from Angel Blue and SeokJong Baek in Robert Carsen’s Aida 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.

The Belfast Ensemble conducted by Tom Deering in rehearsal at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Photograph: Neil Harrison Ramfis ( Solomon Howard) who is ordinarily a High Priest, here appears as an intimidating senior military attaché whilst the rest of the junta wouldn’t have appeared out-of-place in Mubarak’s Egypt. When he presents the General with the icon which will lead Egypt to victory in battle, here it manifests as a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Tightly choreographed set pieces involve the enormous chorus and dancers who have been drilled into a marching/fighting machine equal to any found on an equivalent parade ground or battlefield. Aside from the assault rifle distribution scene, the 2 other notable unsung orchestral interludes give rise to an inspection of the guard by the king and the laying of the victory banquet table. Both are inspired choices and add considerably to the audience’s enjoyment — if only due to the excited nervousness which comes from anticipating whether every chorus member will have managed to reach his/her designated place by the last note.Mezzo-Sopranos Maria Brown, Siobhain Gibson, Zoë Haydn, Maria Jones, Clare McCaldin, Hyacinth Nicholls, Dervla Ramsay, Jennifer Westwood For the first time ever, two opening nightlive broadcasts – Mayerlingand The Royal Ballet: A Diamond Celebration Awaiting his trial, Amneris implores Radames to deny the charges against him. Radames, believing Aida to have been killed, says he longs for death. Amneris tells him that Amonasro has been killed, but that Aida has escaped. If Radames denies his love for Aida, she will save him. Radames refuses. Amneris, furious, leaves him to be tried and convicted. In front of the court, Radames refuses to answer Ramfis’ accusations. He is found guilty and sentenced to die by being entombed alive. Amneris, unable to persuade Ramfis to overturn the sentence, desperately curses her jealousy as well as those who sentenced Radames to death. As Radames is sealed into his tomb, a figure appears in the darkness. It is Aida, who has hidden there to die with him. Alone at last, with the voices of the Egyptians echoing above them, Radames and Aida wait for death to take them to a better world. CALLAS – PARIS, 1958 in cinemas soon should not be missed by opera lovers of whatever vintage (06/11/2023) 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.

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. The cast sees several figures return from the first time round, and some Covent Garden favorites return. Ludovic Tézier and Soloman Howard reprise Amonasro and Ramfis respectively. The latter was granite-like voice as a cold, unsentimental fanatic in a chilling characterization; his attachment to duty is quite different to Radamès, who is a romantic heart – Howard’s Ramfis was all dead-eyed resolve and sense of destiny. His accusatory cries of “Radamès” in the trial sequence were cavernous. Cast: Elena Stikhina(Aida), Francesco Meli(Radames), Agnieszka Rehlis(Amneris), Ludovic Tézier(Amonasro), Soloman Howard(Ramfis), In Sung Sim(King of Egypt) Elīna Garanča delivered a show-stealing Amneris, returning to Covent Garden after her thrilling vocal partnership with SeokJong Baek in Richard Jones’ uneven “Samson et Dalila” last season. Her Act four melt-down was electrifying; her top notes are as bronzed as ever – a fine complement to Angel Blue’s more steely sound. Her middle and lower register, especially in the Act two duet with Aida, had a kind of wounded gravitas; it is a rounded and hugely involving portrayal.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. If colour was absent from the stage, then there was plenty of it in the pit where Antonio Pappano mined all the subtleties of the score, from the most delicate string sound to the heights of orchestral opulence. Time and again, the sensitivity of his reading brought balance, and human warmth, to the grim austerity of the design and the tragic tone of the drama. To take just one moment, Aida’s wrenching mourning after she has been condemned by her father: here, the soft darkness of the lower strings and bassoon wonderfully underscored Aida’s desolation and the pathos of her lament.

Angel Blue took on the title role of Aida. Vocally there was a bright, gilded edge to the sound; this brought an urgency and intensity to the character, and a palpable sense of desperation. It also meant that Blue had little difficulty clearing the orchestra in the biggest climaxes, even if there were fewer colors and shades available above the stave. The velvety textures and muted colors of her middle register were thoroughly absorbing in more inward moments, especially when joined with Blue’s luxurious portamento . In the very highest reaches her vibrato veered a little wide, and intonation lost its focus as a result. But such foibles aside there were many standout moments. Act three’s “O patria mia” sequence showed glorious musical and dramatic range, as well as the limpid ensuing duet with Radamès. Updated! English National Ballet in 2023/24: introducing Maria Seletskaja their new music director (07/11/2023) 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. 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. 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.

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We are delighted to share details of the brand-new Cinema Season from The Royal Opera House.The 2022-23 season will be the biggest season yet with 13 world-classproductions– seven operas and six ballets. Photography and filming are prohibited during performances in any of our auditoriums. You are welcome to take pictures throughout the rest of the building and before performances and share them with us through social media. Commercial photography and filming must be agreed in advance with our press team. Aïda is an opera of two very distinct halves, the first filled with anxious optimism, love, disappointment, victory, defeat, suffering, suspicion, reward and triumphant marches. It gives a director such as Carsen (and given the sheer number of bodies required to create the spectacle, the chorus director William Spaulding) much to work with, and much work to do, both from the perspective of actors’ performance and visual placement. Here, the overtly military focus has given rise to a set where palaces/bunkers are of concrete grey and costumes predominantly of camouflage green hues, both benefiting from dramatic red accents which are visually arresting, stunning (and thankfully devoid of the hideous gold trappings much favoured in such Middle Eastern locations). To protests and frayed nerves, Abomination: A DUP Opera by Conor Mitchell was given its world premiere at the Outburst Queer arts festival in Belfast in 2019. The work’s central character, Iris Robinson, is no fictional antihero but a former Democratic Unionist party politician, married to the former first minister of Northern Ireland. The opera’s verbatim text – grotesque language set to often tender, voluptuous music – is drawn from comments made by Robinson, a born-again Christian, and other DUP members expressing hatred of homosexuality. Robinson’s own extramarital affair, breakdown and suicide attempt have long fuelled gossip-columns in the region. To make opera out of such toxic ingredients was daring, but the work won ovations.