Aida

In one week-end, Columbus was host to arguably the greatest play in the English language and the greatest opera ever written, Aida. One of the reasons Verdi took the commission to write was that he could see how it could be a great spectacle-Aida combines a wonderful story with beautiful music, wondrous sets, and great spectacle.

Imagine my surprise then, when I read in Ledger that the artistic director of the Teatro Lirico d'Europa, Giorgio Lalov, turned up his nose at the idea of spectacle on the stage since "..people will not talk about the animals on stage. They will be talking about the singers."

Lalov was talking about one of the most famous scenes in all of opera, the Victory March in second act which has traditionally been one of the greatest spectacles in opera. The libretto instructions say, "The Egyptian troops, preceded by trumpets, file before sacred vases and statues of the gods-troops of dancing girls who carry the treasures of the defeated-and lastly Radames, under a canopy borne by twelve officers". And then the Ethiopian prisoners. Some companies have added all manner of exotic African animals including elephants.

I certainly didn't expect elephants but I didn't expect the spectacle to be eliminated either. Then I read the program notes which said that such effects were "...cheap tricks and claptrap.."

In fact, there was no victory march at all, just a few ballet dancers and only one Ethiopian prisoner. I can certainly understand holding the costs down but to claim that cheap is the way it's supposed to be is asking too much.

The good news about the "march" was that the trumpeter, (who was supposed to be in the march) was clear and up to the difficult piece. But that's all the good news about this scene. Lalov also promised that when the curtain was opened the audience would applaud the sets but that didn't happen for good reason. They were prosaic and just amateurishly moved around for each scene so there was no spectacle there either.

Aida is not a very demanding role and Olga Chernisheva as Aida was quite good, but was unable to stop the show on her solos. The other strong voice in the cast belonged to Petar Danailov as Amonasro. The remaining cast members were less ready for grand opera but with a strong Aida it wasn't terribly noticeable.

One of the noticeable shortcomings was the blocking. The Egyptian soldier running off to try to catch Aida in Act 3 actually provoked laughter in the crowd. At another point, a knife was left on stage for two scenes-one of which was of prisoner Radames saying he wanted to die while a knife was at his feet.

I suppose I should have taken lower expectations into the theater given the cost of spectacle, but I really didn't think that a $36 ticket wouldn't be enough to at least support a march and a few prisoners. Had the company not gone out of their way to claim that this was as good as it gets, the evening would have been easier to take.