Dozens of Ukrainians protest in front of the Liceu for the presence of Anna Netrebko at the inaugural 'Aida'. ARA
I could hear the Liceu before I saw the doors. This was not music permeating from the inside, but a demonstration outside. A group of protesters were (loudly) making their views know about the Liceu’s choice of Russian singer to take the lead in their production of Aida.
Anna Netrebko is alleged to be fairly closely aligned with Putin, and although she has made various statements about the present situation, those protesters felt that neither she, nor the Liceu had taken strong enough action to show their rejection of the on-going conflict in Ukraine, and also of the accused war criminal and murderer Putin, in his continuation of the war.
I did speak to one of the protesters and expressed my sympathy for his position but also said that I would be going inside and be a part of the audience. I said that I would speak to a manager to make my attitude clear, but I felt that I was acting with the cost of my seat in mind, and not with the prompting of my conscience.
I suppose the trouble is that all of we ‘right thinking’ people have made our positions clear: we do not support Putin in his invasion and his war, and we want to see the conflict resolved as soon as possible. But, apart from expressing opinions, what have we actually done?
I did speak to a member of the management, who said I should speak to Public Relations and that somebody would be available at the end of the show. And that was enough to enable me to enter the theatre, having done (that word really should be in inverted commas) more than most, merely by voicing something to somebody! Not much, but more than nothing.
As I sit in the front row of the audience, I get an unobstructed view of the orchestra and as Aida is one of the grand Grand Operas, it was encouraging to observe a very full pit and know that there would also be on-stage and off-stage musicians swelling the sound.
The Prelude was brilliantly played by an on-form orchestra conducted by Antonello Manacorda, and the curtain rose to reveal the set designed by Christian Schmidt: a gigantic white revolving box which slowly rotated, showing static tableaux of various figures. The box had different sides and opened out during the performance and had projection shown on it, but the basic stage form for this ‘grand’ opera was fundamentally stripped-back tedious.
The Egyptian and Ethiopian setting of the piece was both referenced and ignored. We were invited to view the spectacle through a twentieth century perspective with soldiers dressed in unforms and fatigues, but were also presented with priests who wore costumes that suggested Christian Orthodox or Coptic influences, while the Priestesses suggested something Islamic. The waving of a large black flag at one climactic point in the production and the singing of praises to the Egyptian goddess Isis also made me think that it was a reference to ISIS!
I have no objection to updating a classic piece of operatic repertoire, but I like to have a certain coherence in the directorial viewpoint, and Shirin Neshat did not give me that in her presentation of events.
What conflicts were we supposed to be following? The violence on stage and on film was neither engaging in a narrative sense nor gripping in theatrical terms. There was a confusion between the literal and the figurative and we were left wondering what was real and what was metaphorical in theatrical terms.
This confusion was shown best in the final scene of the opera when Radames and Aida are locked in a claustrophobic tomb – which was presented in a large open space carved into the cube and Aida’s presence was ‘revealed’ by the opening of a circle of unexplained black veiled figures, who, after the reunion made their way off stage via two convenient doors. Why didn’t Radames and Aida follow them?
But this was just one instance when the logic of the stage was not followed. In the scene with Radames being revealed as a traitor there were enough characters on stage (and at hand) easily to stop the escape of Aida and Amonasro, and to capture them.
Ritual and stagecraft, reality and convention constantly clash in this vision of Aida, but not productively. The scene changes were done behind the curtain and the exposed apron strip was occupied by a procession of characters from soldiers, through priests to what appeared to be corpses – in the performance I saw the latter got a slow handclap form some members of the audience and scattered boos as by that point in the opera we had all become irritated by the self-indulgence of the director. The conductor had to turn around and give a stern look into the darkness to quell the mutiny!
But the music was excellent. The playing of the flute solo at the beginning of Act III the prelude to the Nile scene was superb; the six on stage fanfare trumpeters was electric, and the wall of sound that came at the most triumphant moments was almost overwhelming. Indeed, I did feel that at times the balance between an enthusiastic orchestra and gutsy singers was a little too much in favour of the instrumentalists rather than the soloists, but overall, it was an exceptional music performance, conducted with precision and a close attention to detail by Manacorda.
Netrebko commanded the role of Aida, though I thought her quasi-balletic movements were more stylized than they needed to be, given the apparent realism of the depictions of conflict, but she was confident in all registers, and her extended high notes were breathtaking.
Ivan Gyngazov as Radames was a more than equal partner to Netrebko, as was Artur Rucinski as her father Amonasro.
Ekaterina Semenchuk as Amneris was excellent, though her voice is not entirely one I feel comfortable with as it has a harsher element in it to my ear.
Moises Marin as the Messenger made the most of his set piece with a voice that had power, lyricism and depth.
I felt that George Andguladze as the King was slightly under-sung, but he had some stiff competition on stage!
The Chorus was excellent, but they were not asked to do very much in theatrical terms, and were more static than necessary, unless that was part of the ‘idea’ in some way.
This was an excellent musical performance inside an indifferent production, where the inherent difficulties and contradictions in an ill thought-out or perhaps over-thought producer’s vision detracted from making this a truly satisfying evening.
