Aida - Verdi - Metropolitan Opera House, New York City. Friday 17th
April 2015
I attended the second last outing of Aida for this season with Maestro
Domingo on the podium and a strong cast.
When still one of the three tenors Domingo had been the original Radames
in this classic production’s premiere in 1988 - along with Leona Mitchell,
Sherrill Milnes, Fiorenza Cossotto and James Levine in the pit. This is one of the few productions to survive
the ‘Gelb purge’, the reason being that it would be hard to beat!
While I adore the massive Egyptian colossi, sphinxes, march of hundreds,
horses and triumphalism, for the purist it is a clever fraud
stylistically. It was fortuitous that I
visited the Egyptian wing at the Metropolitan Museum earlier in the day, noting
that the set designer Gianni Quaranta must have done the same thing, quite
correctly, but got one major detail totally wrong. Those faded frescoes, chipped statues and archaeological
remnants would all have been new and vibrant at the time of the opera. I once saw Anna Bolena at Covent Garden just
after visiting the Tower of London and noted some similar incongruities.
But I am being pedantic and the singing is what really matters … and it
was 9 out of 10 for the most part - the Met chorus scoring ten. Mark Delevan was most impressive playing
Amonasro, as was Ramfis, played by Stefan Kocan a solid Met regular.
Italian Marco Berti was fine as Radames managing the almost impossible Celeste Aida more than passably with
much accurate and exciting singing beyond.
Lithuanian Violeta Urmana was splendid as Amneris although her usually
strong mid-voice seemed underpowered at times.
Her highs and lows were exemplary as was her drama especially at the end
of Act IV, Scene 1 when she is torn between anger, love and grief.
Oksana Dyka from the Ukraine (meaning ‘borderlands’) sang an excellent
Aida. Her dramatic input was stereotyped
and her arms out-arms in became repetitive and irritating at times. Her voice rose to numerous substantial
heights yet she did not break any records (or chandeliers). Maria Callas has detracted from the end of
Act II for all who have heard recordings of her phenomenal feat in Mexico City
singing a long, powerful and exciting E flat above chorus and orchestra. The only more exciting thing I have heard is
the thunderous applause from the audience following that high note. A less stable nation might have been driven
to a coup d’etat.
The Met production by Sonja Frisell also has many high points but it is
hard to go past the start of her Triumphal March which is still a breathtaking
stage phenomenon no matter how many times one has seen it. Aida is a brilliantly constructed drama
conceived in outline by doyenne Egyptologist Auguste Mariette (who is not
credited on the Met program title page).
The characters and interactions are all believable to me. Verdi put all his mature genius into this
work, having been brought out of retirement by the King of Egypt, his own wife
and numerous others around him. Possibly
more than any other composer he developed his art - over six decades.
While the drama, melodies, vocal ornaments and choruses are exemplary in
Aida, for me the unique factor lies in the brief orchestral sections starting
and finishing each act. As with
Falstaff, Verdi’s final opera, we have instrumental emotion, characterisation
and even personality shining through an art which began with Gregorian chants a
thousand years earlier (and these were unaccompanied!). Listen for the crickets at the start of the Nile Scene!
The Met orchestra was marvellous including six trumpeters on stage for
the big scene. The players know what
they are doing with this popular ‘pot boiler’ being the ‘A’ of the ‘ABC’ of
operas. And some of the senior members
may have played under Toscanini! Much of
the excited applause was clearly for the conductor Mr Domingo who Mr Gelb
quoted recently to the audience as ‘immortal at the Met’. And his presence must have contributed to the
near full houses of recent performances.
Notes by Andrew Byrne ..
Andrew’s Travels: http://ajbtravels.blogspot.com/
More soon (if I can) on Ernani both with and without Mr Domingo; new
Cav&Pag production by David McVicar, A Masked Ball, Don Carlos and The
Merry Widow. A marvellous month of opera
despite frequent illness amongst the singers.
Even some pre-Bach choral masses from Spain!
