As challenging as it is to stage Aida with all its color and majesty, Verdi’s grandest opera may be even more difficult to sing and act. From Radames’ opening plaint, “Celeste Aida,” and onwards, the arias are deceptively simple, calling for clear tones and commanding power.
And that Antonio Ghislanzoni libretto! Colossal, conflicted and so silly — an Egyptian general and an Ethopian princess divided by fierce loyalties to their respective countries, drawn together by the irresistible force of animal chemistry. If you’ve ever been tethered to the screaming, agonizing Restoration dramas of Dryden or the rock quarries of Corneille’s verse, you know the numbing agony of these passionate, self-pitying royals.
It can be fiendishly hard to budge the stone of the colossal scenery and to goose the stasis of the action so that we pleasurably reach the palpitating heart of the music, which is some of Verdi’s best, and feel the tragedy. Last time Opera Carolina tried it, they merged with companies from across the continent and laid a grandiose multimillion dollar unit set on us and little else that was memorable.
This time around, stage director Trevore Ross paid more attention to spectacle, parading a camel, a zebra, a watusi and a great white steed to herald Radames’ great triumph over the pesky Ethiopians. Music director James Meena deployed three brass players onstage to add punch to the pomp of the Memphis procession and marshaled some of the most powerful voices ever heard at Belk Theater.
Sad to say, Susan Patterson was often east of intonation in an intense recital of Aida’s “O patria mia,” and Antonio Nagore, richly lyrical as he was through most of his range, was noticeably craggy at the summit — and disinclined to do any acting as the lovelorn Radames. He looked more the strapping young general than Patterson looked the enticing slave princess, but only slightly. As for Elena Bocharova’s rendition of the jealous Egyptian princess Amneris, I can say, on the positive side, that she was as loud as Patterson and Nagore ñ and the wig greatly enhanced her beauty.
Ross seems to have spent more quality time with the livestock than the singers, who weren’t obliged to move much and were often less exciting to watch than the supertitles. Comprimario roles were better served by John Lehmeyer’s costumes than by Myron Myers as high priest Ramfis or Sean Cooper as the Pharaoh. Noah Rice’s Italian as a messenger would have sounded more credible if he were thumbing a guidebook.
The power of Aida conquered best when there was spectacle to behold and the full brassy sound of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra to hear — along with the combined choral forces of Opera Carolina and the Gethsemane AME Zion Church. And there were delicious times when Patterson and Nagore spent long interludes in the creamiest parts of their range at full throttle. The sheer power of their voices was enough to rattle your spine and make you gasp.
Amid the uncertainties of those principals, there was the rock-solid certainty of GaÎtan LaperriËre’s baritone as King Amonasro, Aida’s stern warrior father. When that man tells you to quit messin’ with your boyfriend, you better listen!
This article appears in Feb 6-12, 2008.
