Michele Monasta
“You recognize they’re doing a distinct model, proper? Of Aïda.” For a short second I felt faint, lightheaded, vertiginous. There’s a distinct model? Like Don Carlo? And I didn’t know this? I selected my phrases rigorously: “Do you imply, the rating?” Silence. “Or the manufacturing.” “Sure, the staging. It’s completely different.” “Oh! Sure. I did examine that.” Provided that this dialog occurred at the back of a golf cart hurtling via Florence in direction of the Fondazione Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with solely 10 minutes to go earlier than curtain (lengthy story), I felt it greatest to go away it there. I’m certain you perceive.
The humorous factor is, when such a canonically ossified work like Verdi’s Aïda is directed in any respect (not to mention as ambitiously as Damiano Michieletto on the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), it does really feel like a very completely different opera, even perhaps a distinct style of leisure, than what you may discover at a Met or Teatro alla Scala or the Enviornment di Verona. Although nominally a spectacle-piece, most directorial touches in your common big-house Aïda are often restricted to the choral numbers and the handful of balletic divertissements with any bodily motion between the 5 principal characters rendered secondary to whichever place and/or discarded granite slab they will most comfortably vocalize from.
The paradox of these “conventional” Aïda stagings is that by in search of “trustworthy” non-intervention and illustration, they go away the viewers with a a lot thinner conception of the characters and their motivations than the libretto truly affords them. Michieletto’s staging, against this, didn’t deal with Antonio Ghislanzoni’s libretto with such contempt, as an alternative instructing the characters to truly enact a believable drama (a tragedy!) in opposition to the backdrop of a bloody ongoing conflict. Moreover, Michieletto probed a number of essential questions raised by the plot: How do the King, Ramfis and Amneris differ of their possession and deployment of energy? What is definitely occurring between Amneris and Ramfis? What had been the precise circumstances of Amonasro’s dying?
In some ways, these interpersonal dynamics had been extra profitable than a few of the bigger concepts conceived by Michieletto, whose staging is up to date to (roughly) the current day. Removed from a luxurious pageant, a lot of the motion takes place in a deteriorating college gymnasium, the ceiling practically caved in by latest shelling. (The units are by Paolo Fantin.) The physique of a small baby wrapped in a shroud, introduced onstage previous to the doorway of the King and his messenger in Act I, instantly reminded us of the human value of those sorts of tales in addition to introduced the motion to an uncomfortably acquainted proximity. The Act II Triumphal March was a harrowing affair that includes a parade of veteran amputees. Black soot poured from the holes within the ceiling throughout the massive, Act-concluding ensembles. These had been compelling photos, however they labored higher once I didn’t assume too exhausting about whichever modern analog both aspect was meant to symbolize.
However, the up to date setting enabled Michieletto to successfully develop the principle characters inside extra acquainted environment. Daniela Barcellona’s Amneris was introduced as a sort of administrator, primarily in command of a bunch of kids (presumably conflict orphans) and Olga Maslova’s Aïda appeared to be one in every of a number of caregivers in her make use of. The ensuing energy dynamic was extra nebulous than regular, however this made for a extra intriguing love-triangle between the 2 of them and the newly-promoted Radames.
How safe did Amneris truly really feel in her betrothal? Actually not a lot, as she spent a major quantity of the motion evading a lascivious Ramfis, whose regular aloofness was changed with a chilly sadism. One was given the impression that her need for Radames was not out of lust alone, however self-preservation. The relative energy of the King turned much more precarious; if the Excessive Priest can commonly drive himself on the daughter of the Pharaoh, what else does he get away with?
Michele Monasta
This rejuvenated dramaturgy was aided on the musical aspect by an exceptionally robust quintet of lead roles. Of central curiosity for me was Maslova, a 33-year-old simply a number of years into her worldwide profession however already boasting a busy calendar of a few of the most demanding roles within the repertory.
To place it mildly, Maslova has an uncommon vocal profile for this repertory, a corpus that has considerably coalesced round a globalized Verdian “house-style.” Although absolutely able to unfurling her voice over Verdi’s huge ensemble climaxes, Maslova was extra typically inclined to dispatch her position’s sweeping melodies with a compact, slender and barely cool timbre that nonetheless retained each carrying energy and middle of pitch. It was an Aïda with lengthy, sketched out musical concepts that had been higher than the sum of their components. This was on greatest show within the third Act when Aïda should use each melody and punctiliously prescribed dynamics to vivify the Arcadian landscapes that Ghislanzoni inserts into her recollections of Ethiopia. We study, via her poetically achieved deception of Radames, that Aïda’s capability for reflection — till now, a function of her inert passivity — is definitely what makes her uniquely highly effective. Not less than, we study this when the Aïda has the musical creativeness to ship a efficiency that’s higher than a catalog of selection phrases and floated notes.
Will probably be fascinating to see the place Maslova goes from right here. Usually, vocalists of her scope spend their early careers in Mozart. That she is already making her house in Abigaille and Turandot raises some fascinating questions in regards to the nature of those roles themselves, in addition to the lifelike contours of knowledgeable profession within the twenty first century. For now, we will respect that singers are persevering with to seek out methods to satisfy Verdi with out being beholden to each post-hoc conference related along with his vocal writing.
To a considerably lesser extent, Barcellona’s Amneris was additionally consultant of a extra fluid method to a treacherously demanding position. By no means gifted with a very sizable or refulgent voice, Barcellona as an alternative made her bones within the florid music of Handel and Rossini, the proof of which could possibly be heard right here in her musical precision and class of line. Furthermore, her consolation within the awkward “Musico” tessitura demanded by these earlier composers transferred effectively to Amneris whose most biting remarks and melting phrases are inclined to reside in each extremities of her vary.
Michele Monasta
This was my second time listening to Seokjeong Baek’s Radames and I used to be happy to seek out that my extraordinarily constructive impression earlier this 12 months was not a matter of likelihood. There may be an uncommon fluency to his vocal manufacturing that allows him to adapt inside an enormous array of musical calls for whereas retaining clear and expressive diction. There’s a splendidly symmetrical chiaroscuro to his timbre and a relaxed airflow that provides his vibrato a pleasantly wealthy texture. I’m feeling bullish on this one, if you happen to haven’t gathered. The distinction of Baek’s marbled, often baritonal supply and Maslova’s refined, pearly legato felt each deeply trendy however intriguingly old style; not a lot Björling/Milanov as Ramon Vinay and Ljuba Welitsch.
Simon Lim’s Ramfis was delivered with a cavernous, throbbing tone, equally sturdy each excessive and low and shrewdly deployed in his character’s hypnotic (and too transient) incantation sequences. Much less musically profitable was the King of Manuel Fuentes, whose occluded singing had problem reaching previous the footlights, however this (maybe inadvertently) additionally heightened the previously-noted distinction between his character’s persuasiveness and that of his Excessive Priest. Daniel de Vicente’s Amonasro was delivered in an opulent, fearlessly deployed baritone which luxuriated within the typically glacial tempi supplied from the orchestra.
It was undeniably particular to attend a efficiency carried out by the venerable Zubin Mehta and wittnessing the ecstatic receptions he obtained from the rostrum and stage had been virtually definitely worth the value of admission. The conducting itself was extra variable; the efficiency contained many flashes of his eye for element and meticulous preparation – the trumpet ritornello in “Pur ti riveggo” was delivered with a delightfully tight and crisp staccato, the Act I dance of the priestesses had a beautiful calibration of meter. At all times a singer’s-conductor, solo numbers had a breadth and attentiveness that enabled the characters to discover their music absolutely. Nevertheless, he typically appeared reluctant to speed up, which left his soloists out to dry in Verdi’s lengthy, advanced ensemble melodies.
It stays to be seen if Michieletto’s staging is consultant of any altering winds within the Aïda-meta. For these of us who name the Met house, it’s sadly unlikely. Nevertheless, there is no such thing as a motive why the characters — even in a manufacturing that provides top-billing to the horses in Act II — can’t be as textured and engaged as they had been underneath Michieletto’s steerage. If Aïda is to be condemned to a way forward for “trustworthy” illustration, then administrators must be duly beneficiant with the depth Ghislanzoni and Verdi conceived for his or her historic heroes and heroines, somewhat than treating them as noisemakers who can drift from one temple destroy to the subsequent.
