Robert Carsen’s staging of Aida, now in its third season at Covent Garden, feels more pertinent with every year that the Ukraine war continues and tensions in world politics increase. Carsen zeroes in on the opera’s wartime setting, with a telling duality between Act 1, with the Egyptian messenger’s news of fields and crops devastated by the Ethiopians, and Act 3, with Amonasro telling Aida how rivers of blood will flow when the Egyptians invade in return. The message comes through clearly: behind the militaristic pomp, it’s the ancestral hatred between the two peoples which constitutes the fertile soil in which the very personal tragedy of Aida and Radamès will take root.
Carsen and designer Miriam Buether place us firmly in the hands of today’s military superpowers, in a world of concrete bunkers, parades that could be taken from Russian newsreels, video montage of American shock-and-awe attacks, giant cult-of-personality photos. The Grand March of Act 2 is staged first as a parade of flag-draped coffins, then as Rebecca Howells’ exceptionally punchy choreography of modern infantry combat.
In all this, a fairly standard operatic plot unfolds of the “sleeping with the enemy” trope stitched into a love triangle. The best of the singing comes from the father-daughter pairing of Amartuvshin Enkhbat as Amonasro and Anna Pirozzi in the title role. Enkhbat is turning into one the top Verdi baritones on the circuit, with a huge voice which fully delivers on dramatic intensity. Both his key moments – his defiance of the King of Egypt and his bludgeoning of his daughter into betraying her lover – were punches to the gut. Pirozzi used a slew of different vocal colours to paint the swinging moods of Aida’s character: tender, tortured, regal, angry, desperate. The most appealing of these was tenderness: her voice has real sweetness at the top of the register even when it’s loud enough to shine over chorus and orchestra – and that’s no mean feat with the wall of sound being generated by the Royal Opera Chorus, who seem always to be at the very top of their game in this opera.
The other two main roles were late substitutes. Replacing Ekaterina Semenchuk and making her Royal Opera debut, Raehann Bryce-Davis took a while to warm up as Amneris, with enough power to be heard individually but struggling to compete in ensemble and with uncertain diction. But she improved steadily and gave us a barnstorming performance of impotent rage in Act 4 as her pleas and anger at Ramfis come to nothing. As Radamès, Tenerife-born Jorge de Léon – an even later replacement – showed us the appeal of his voice with its clear highs and smooth phrasing, as well as demonstrating his experience in a role which is the nearest Verdi gets to a Heldentenor part. “Celeste Aida” is a showstopper which has to be delivered straight out of the starting gate and de Léon dispatched it with aplomb, going on to ramp up the emotion as the opera progressed, broadening both vibrato and dynamic range.
I haven’t always been a fan of Daniel Oren’s conducting, but it was faultless on this occasion. He particularly impressed with his control of dynamics: some daring pianissimi for the off-stage choruses made space for the levels to be steadily ratcheted up so that the big set-piece moments made a real impact. The woodwind players were on particularly fine form, their solos melding beautifully with the voices.
Neither this opera nor the production are perfect. The lack of agency of either female lead can be frustrating (both Aida and Amneris, by and large, have things done to them rather than actually accomplishing anything). The singing of the minor roles wasn’t particularly distinguished. And while the unremitting expanses of grey concrete serve the director’s military intent, they feel inappropriate to Amneris’ apartments, and the setting of Act 3 as a war memorial rings false as a secret place where our lovers would choose to meet. The sheer grimness of the setting will also disappoint some. But the highest praise I can give to Carsen is that he has made me re-evaluate the opera and understand Verdi’s brilliance in accomplishing a commission which required huge, celebratory set pieces at the same time as transmitting a strong pacifist message while providing a conventional operatic plot which wouldn’t frighten the horses. With top quality orchestral and choral performances, this revival is well worth the visit.
