Verdi: Aida -- Royal Opera House [DVD]

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Aida and Amneris, on the other hand, have a really interesting relationship, rivals who are almost sympathetic towards each other. The remarkable Polish mezzo-soprano Agnieszka Rehlis, also making her house debut, is the imperious Amneris, her voice smouldering with deep desire as she struts in Megan-style caped dresses. The chorus’s precision, and the exciting fortissimos and whispers this work demands, made them the stars Insula’s Sky Burial at the Barbican is a stunning evening, unique, and vitally important (22/11/2023) 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. 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.

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. A high-level cast and ‘La Dolce Vita’ setting charm from the get-go in San Francisco Opera’s The Elixir of Love (27/11/2023) Christian Thielemann to become new General Music Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (27/09/2023) 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.

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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. It’s not a production built on traditional spectacle, which can be both frustrating and clarifying. The ballet sequences are a mixed affair. At the top of Act two Amneris’ servants are given little more to do than extravagantly and mechanically set a dinner table, at which no one ever actually sits down to eat. The final scene takes place in a sort of weapons storage facility, which is oddly lit with a rather muddy yellow light that doesn’t capture either transcendental reconciliation to the heroes’ fate nor the score’s final invocation, perhaps hopeful, of “ pace .” In a wonderful night for male voices, Korean bass In Sung Sim is a 21st-century pharaoh, an idolised figurehead, served by a vast army, meticulously drilled. French baritone Ludovic Tézier as Amonasro leads his vanquished people with rage and passion. But it is American bass Soloman Howard as Ramfis -– originally a high priest, here a General – who, in a Covent Garden debut to remember, drew the loudest cheers from a delighted first night audience. This reviewer just wishes (for the entire company’s sake) that Verdi had not written the second half. For any optimist and even most romantics, it is simply an excrutiating hour of misery, blame, recrimination and human stupidity. There are few redeeming moments and the final tomb scene — which here is actually an underground bomb storage depot — is one of the most foolishly morose to ever feature in the work of a genius as notable and loved as Guiseppe Verdi, (so we must lay the blame squarely at the feet of his librettist Antonio Ghislanzoni).

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. 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.No apologies, one week on, for another eulogy to the musicians at Westminster Abbey. From the warmup act brilliance of the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, to the service itself under the orchestral and choral helms of Antonio Pappano and Andrew Nethsingha working in perfect harmony; to the formidable trumpeters; to each of the choristers and soloists; to the organist; to the composers past and present: this coronation was a display of impeccable music-making by singers and players who (with only a few exceptions) were trained in this country. Their discipline and hard work is beyond measure. Anyone paying attention already knows the perilous state of British musical life. The music that resounded in the abbey was more eloquent than any rant. Words add nothing. At least for now. Updated! English National Ballet in 2023/24: introducing Maria Seletskaja their new music director (07/11/2023) Dancers Bradley Applewhaite, Eamonn Cox, Nolan Edwards, Cameron Everitt, Tristan Ghostkeeper, Martin Harding, Vincent Merouze, Chris Otim, Anthony Pereira, Dominic Rocca, Trevor Schoonraad The performance was dominated by two artists: the Amneris of Elīna Garanča and the conducting of Sir Mark Elder. Elder found such detail in the score – the orchestra played at its very best for him throughout, the opening of the first act beautifully, keenly phrased, the great musical arches of the big choral scenas perfectly traced. Elder is a man of the theatre, and how it showed. As for Elīna Garanča, she dominated the stage throughout, effortlessly, her voice strong, resolute and rich from her first entrance. Worth mentioning, as the Aida on this occasion, Angel Blue, took a little while to warm into the role of the captured Ethiopian princess (also in contrast to Elena Stikhina last time round). Once she had centred herself, though, Blue’s vocal strength was all there (a fine ‘O patria mia’) – a pity she did not show an equal dramatic presence to that of Garanča.

Sopranos Angela Caesar, Celeste Gattai, Kathryn Jenkin, Bernadette Lord, Alison Rayner, Anna Samant, Rosalind Waters, Vanessa WoodfineMezzo-Sopranos Maria Brown, Siobhain Gibson, Zoë Haydn, Maria Jones, Clare McCaldin, Hyacinth Nicholls, Dervla Ramsay, Jennifer Westwood But just listen to the first few bars of that overture. Where he might have opened with the sort of military pomp that comes later, Verdi spins a single gossamer line. Lives hang by a thread in this opera. A whisper, overheard, and not a shout, can change everything when love and duty collide. An international roster of opera stars including Juan Diego Flórezand Danielle de Niese in La bohème, Elena Stikhinaand Ludovic Tézierin Aida ,and Bryn Terfelin The Barber of Seville The somewhat grey staging remains unremittingly bleak; as war itself is, of course. We are a long way away from Egypt here (although at one point the elevated viewpoint did reveal a decidedly pyramidal shadow!); the militaristic setting is unnamed, a conflation of several territories, and therefore a reminder that the machinations of war continue whatever the era. Video footage of war reminds us of its terrors in no uncertain fashion, and perfectly delivered in Duncan McLean’s video designs, while the ballet acts out conflict to fine effect. Although cast on a grand scale, the sets do feel somewhat claustrophobic, and deliberately so – the final, offstage calls of ‘Pace, pace, pace’ by Amneris made all the more effect for it. 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).