Rising to a spectacular climax halfway through, descending in an intimate, tragic fall, Verdi’s Aida (1871) is as problematic as it is grand and popular. The story of love across the divide – between an enslaved Ethiopian princess and an Egyptian army captain – has enduring traction. How, though, to deal with a triumphal march, famed for an irresistibly snazzy trumpet tune, that celebrates death by numbers, all set against an uneasy, Egyptomania backdrop of pharaonic power and bloodshed? These questions are an opera director’s challenge. Robert Carsen faces them head on in his 2022 production for the Royal Opera, designed by Miriam Buether, now back and conducted by Daniel Oren in its second revival (director Gilles Rico).
Exoticism is banished. The setting is non-specific, a totalitarian state at war. Military hallmarks of China, Russia and the US co-join in the panoply of flags, tiered seating, peaked caps and decorations. Ancient Egypt, far from absent though stripped of the usual iconography, is a definitive and ghostly presence, achieved through a suggestion of the colossal: enclosed court, temple, sanctuary deflected through a prism of fascist architectural style (and also, incidentally, providing welcome aural support for the singers). This sombre focus puts Verdi’s preoccupations – war, death and homeland – into perspective. Easy to forget when elephants, horses and belly dancers, beloved of arena opera stagings, hold sway.
