UK Edition
Review
Aida in a microwave? The musicianship saves the day - Salzburg Festival, review
Bar by bar, scene by scene, Riccardo Muti’s command of Verdi’s Aida is absolute. He draws out details in the score that have languished unsuspected under other conductors; he clarifies everyline of the most complex vocal ensembles; he makes every colour, every note, every pause tell. Singers aren’t allowed to fudge or grandstand: under his baton, the composer’s markings are sacrosanct.
The military discipline implicit in this approach could be rather deadly in effect, but from the opera’s subtle prelude through the majesty of its Triumph Scene to the final breathless dying fall, Muti’s musicianship electrifies.
A superb cast and the peerless Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra are his willing servants – slaves, perhaps. Anna Netrebko makes a thrilling debut in the title role, singing with a polish and elegance that have not invariably marked her exuberant style of performance. Her richly beautiful middle register glowed throughout, and her tireless top register rode the stormer passages with amazing ease. She couldn’t quite pull off the tricky pianissimo climax to “O patria mia”, but much else in the Nile scene was exquisitely achieved. An authoritative friend told me he thought she was the best Aida since Leontyne Price (b 1927).
Francesco Meli – youthful, slender and handsome, more Knight of the Round Table than Egyptian warrior – was a sweet-toned courtly Radames with an iron fist inside his velvet glove. “Celeste Aida” was gracefully phrased, and he was a match for Netrebko in their third act duet. Ekaterina Semenchuk was a potent Amneris, with fire-power to spare – I only wish she had gone for broke in the Judgment scene and ripped into the breast-beating histrionics.
Perhaps one also craved a bit more welly from Luca Salsi’s Amonasro and Dmitry Belosselskiy’s Ramfis, but Muti does not countenance vulgarity. Likewise, the chorus didn’t raise the roof when Radames returns “vincitor”, but how stirring were its imprecations and exultations nonetheless.
Sadly, the performance is let down by a dismally vacuous production directed by an Iranian artist Shirin Neshat and designed by Christian Schmidt. Set inside what looked like a white microwave oven cut into halves and placed on a revolve, it goes through the motions without offering any dramatic insight or historical location. Processions of baleful priests in Monty Python beards made me giggle; trendy video projections are pointless. Worst of all, two intervals plus long scene changes slowed the overall pace exasperatingly: I’m surprised Muti sanctioned them.
In rep until Aug 25. Tickets: 0043 80 45361; salzburgfestival.at