Author : Jos Hermans
Did Richard Wagner have a decisive influence on the genesis of Verdi's Aida? It is sometimes suggested. The fact is that Verdi had once again retired to the lee of his estate in Sant'Agata when, in the winter of 1869, overcome by chronic opera fatigue, he turned down the commission to write a hymn for the opening of the Suez Canal. When, a few months later, he received a request from Camille Du Locle to set Aida, based on a prose draft by the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette (attributed by Philips-Matz, however, with great probability to Verdi's rival Temistocle Solera) to music, he finally gave in. Muzio, working in Cairo, had already informed Verdi of the exorbitant sums the Khedive was willing to pay. Was it the 150,000 francs fee (to be deposited with Rotschild in Paris) or the letter enclosed by the cunning Du Locle stating that the commission would otherwise go to Wagner or Gounod that won him over? In 1869 Wagner could have put this fine sum to good use. The Khedive of Cairo, Ismael Pasha, only recently had an opera theater built, and in his Europeanization frenzy he toyed with the idea of making Cairo a Paris on the Nile. The opera theater was the first on the African continent. It was attended almost exclusively by Europeans residing in Cairo. Wagner, too, was not unknown to the Khedive. A few years later, he would buy Patronatscheine worth 500 Pounds Sterling for the construction of the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth.
Damiano Michieletto's production could not have been more different from the spectacular but insipid Star Wars staging Stefano Poda recently designed around the Eyvazov/Netrebko couple for the Verona arena. It ultimately differed little from the noble kitsch with which conventional productions of Aida are often equipped. The hectoliters of gold paint were merely exchanged for hi-tech laser light. What is lacking in Verona becomes inescapable in Munich : the characters are no longer pushed away by the spectacle but are given depth and become essentials. In a piece like Aida, this is crucial. There is also better singing to be heard in Munich.
This recalibration Michieletto achieves by two means: by showing the war for what it really is and, on the other hand, by letting the memory of lost happiness break into this dystopian reality and keep alive the hope for a better life. Suddenly all the kitsch is gone from Aida. The director himself puts it as follows : "I am not interested in war as an approach to everything military, what interests me are the effects of war and violence on the characters. I want to convey the theme not as a military story but as something that happens to the civilian population. The society as I show it in Aida is situated in a non-military urban space reduced to rubble by the conflict. A space where people used to congregate, play, have fun, spend their leisure time. But now it is occupied by coffins and wounded people (...) People are not prepared for violence. Death has such a devastating effect because it breaks into daily life in families, it doesn't spare children."
When the curtain rises, it is already war, and the Egyptian people have entrenched themselves in Paolo Fantin's bombed-out gymnasium. Black dust will occasionally swirl down through the impact craters in the ceiling, an image reminiscent of Hiroshima's nuclear fallout in Shohei Imamura's "Black Rain." War fever takes hold of the Egyptians. A mother has stuffed animals displayed on her child's coffin . "Ritorno vincitor" will elicit from Aida a flashback of her idyllic childhood. We see her as a child with her father on the balance beam in the gym. Despite the absence of all Egyptian religious symbolism, there is an invocation of the supernatural when the soldiers in suggestive red light seem to offer their army boots to the war gods. In other words : the spiritual part of Verdi's score is not cut short. The compelling scenic action allows no choreography for the ballet music. A soldier is taken care of by the army barber. High priest Ramfis is stripped of his religious function and transformed into an opportunistic henchman of the king, an intervention that proves to work very well. Alexander Köpeczi lends his jet-black bass to the dark character. That he has other motives becomes clear only in the third act.
The soup distribution of the second act brings the women's chorus to the forefront. Again, the ballet music is very catchy in rhythm. A stilt walker entertains playing children. The red carpet is rolled out for the crippled soldiers returning from the front. The king pins a medal on them. When a projection screen rolls down, we are also shown images that take place before the mind's eye of the traumatized Radamès. That's not how it sounds in the showy martial music that partly finds its legitimacy in the work's commission. The Khedive of Cairo himself had only recently crushed an uprising in Sudan. However, the giant magnifying glass the composer focuses on the triumphal march is crucial in Verdi's thinking. It served only one purpose: to expose the revolting weight of collusion between politics and religion. Here Michieletto demonstrates how a contradictory stage action in counterpoint to the music can still work very well. The chorus sounds homogeneous and overwhelming in the mass scenes of the second act. Even the more intimate choruses, such as the male chorus during the "Immenso Fthà" ritual earlier, were outstanding. A soldier throwing away his medal ventilates his opinion about the king's good intentions.
After intermission, the black dust has accumulated into a mountain, a dung heap of decay. Daniele Rustioni starts the third act in ppp. Throughout the evening he will focus on sharpness and dynamic differentiation and when both enhance each other as during the moments of the third act when the orchestra is allowed to explode the effect is overwhelming. What follows are three strong duets that bring the temperature to boiling point. George Petean as Amonasro disappoints a tad with his not optimally projecting baritone. Riccardo Massi as Radamès, hopelessly confused from the first moments amidst the dual intrigue, grows into his role and manages to convince when he finally puts love before state interest. All he lacks is that bit of radiant sunshine in his throat. Judit Kutasi's Amneris initially remains somewhat flat, but gradually her Hungarian/Romanian temperament will take over and she will sing a scorching finale. Elena Stikhina sings Aida with her trademark searing intensity and with the potential of a true spinto. Ramfis, meanwhile, has exposed himself as Radamès' rival but is rejected by Amneris. Silence falls in the auditorium after Radamès' death sentence. No one dares to applaud. In the final scene, the director visualizes Verdi's utopia and slides a garden party into the picture, complete with balloons and Aida's father dancing in slow motion to the (inaudible) tones of an accordion. Ramfis, realizing that he will soon rise to power via the king's daughter after the elimination of Radamès , forces an engagement ring on her finger but is again rejected. Rustioni wraps up, as mysteriously as he had begun the evening.
Watch the show at Staatsoper TV