Aida, English National Opera reviewed: The grandest of grand operas

Set in wartime in ancient Egypt, it gives directors and designers a wonderful opportunity to create massive sets and extravagant costumes, while the plot combining love, jealousy and violence lets the singers display great emotion and acting skills. 

Add some magnificent music and all the ingredients are there. 

By choosing this to open their season in a new production by the extraordinary Phemin McDermott, the ENO has made a clear statement that they are open for business again after a couple of years in the financial doldrums.

After creating some amazingly huge paper puppets for Philip Glass’s Satyagraha, incorporating a team of jugglers into the same composers Akhnaten and adding a memorable troupe of circus performers to Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte, McDermott has built a reputation for enhancing operas in remarkable ways.

For Aida, he has added a team of female acrobats to the chorus, which actually makes a pleasant change, especially in some of the opera’s rather long ballet sequences. 

I have some doubts, however, about the varying time periods suggested in the costumes. 

I know the idea is to show how the emotions of the piece have contemporary relevance, but this really does not need pointing out. 

We can all relate to passion and violence and there is no need to bring sub-machine guns into a tale of ancient Egypt in order to make the point. 

That, however, is almost the only thing wrong with this production. 

The Canadian Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts the ENO Orchestra with impressive panache, combined with excellent restraint when the orchestral music needs to take second place to the singers and what is happening on stage. 

This thoughtful performance brings out the very best in Verdi’s music. 

The greatest joy, however, came in the performance of the title role by American soprano Latonia Moore.

This singer has everything: a glorious voice, whether belting out the angry music at impressively high volume or whispering the pitiful pianissimo passages, her performance throughout showed great passion and acting ability. 

Welsh tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones was not far behind as Aida’s lover Radames, also adding great commitment and a fine voice to his performance. 

The third point of the love triangle, Aida’s rival Amneris, was sun well enough by American mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, but compared with the passion showed by Aida and Radames, her acting looked rather wooden. 

I was rather bemused when some of Verdi’s most vigorous dance music was not matched by similarly eye-catching movements on stage, particularly by the acrobats, but on thinking about it, I think McDermott probably got this right.

The whole production emphasizes the solemnity and taut control of the Egyptian army, and that picture is intensified by having the soldiers conduct a slow ritual while the musical intensity grows. 

All in all, a great evening’s entertainment combining powerful music that we have often heard before with an eye-catchingly dramatic new production. 

Box Office: www.eno.org or 020 7845 9300 (in production until December 2)