Home again
Amal Choucri Catta revels in Aida's return to her original home
Giuseppe Verdi's Aida; Cairo Opera Orchestra, Choir and Ballet; conductor: Nader Abbassi; director: Abdel-Moneim Kamel; choreographers: Abdel-Moneim and Erminia Kamel; choir master: Aldo Magnato; Opera House Main Hall, 4 to 7 May
The melancholy opening melody, which was to recur at intervals, signalled an immediate sense of recognition: once again Aida, Verdi's four-act tragedy, was back on the main stage of the Cairo Opera. And although the Pyramids Plateau performances had threatened to overshadow Aida's annual performance at the opera, the faithful audience realised that the performance was created for just such a theatre, not for a high-tech, gigantic open-air stage.
True to form, the production lived up to the highest expectations, providing not only the magic of music but a truly remarkable combination of beautifully coordinated elements, with the choir and the ballet making a significant contribution.
Performed for only four nights last week, this year the production benefited from a few -- welcome -- changes introduced by its expert organisers. The sets were better distributed on stage, allowing the performers greater mobility. More dramatic use could have been made of the available lighting arrangement, but the magnificent costumes and jewellery were sufficiently eye-catching for the audience to be visually satisfied. Nader Abbassi presided over a Cairo Opera Orchestra at its best, coordinating with the choir and the dual cast of singers with effortless subtlety. Abbassi really proved his mettle.
With Iman Mustafa and Simona Bertini as Aida, Krzysztof Bednarek and Walid Korayem as Radames, Alfio Grasso and Mustafa Mohamed as Amonasro, Boyka Vassileva and Hanan El-Guindi as Amneris, and finally Reda El-Wakil as Ramfis, singing performances were on the whole commendable. Hanan El-Guindi's Amneris, for example, was eminently sublime. Yet as Aida Simona Bertina, while possessing a voice to treasure, moved in a somewhat too abrupt and inelegant manner, conveying none of the refinement worthy of the daughter of an Ethiopian king (even if she happens to be a slave). For her part El-Guindi was such a captivating Amneris she made one doubt whether Aida really was the opera's principal character. Balancing Aida's heart- rending grieving for her homeland in Act I with an admirably spontaneous reaction to seeing her beloved, Radames, with the Ethiopian princess and Amonasro in flagrante in Act III, she delivered a stunning performance throughout. The only Egyptian opera singer to participate regularly in the Bayreuth Festival, while also performing at the Salzburg Opera House among other venues, having studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum. She is the world's most sensitive interpreters of the greatest roles.
Beyond singing, the production proved visually satisfying and dramatically engaging. The first two acts were appropriately spectacular, granting audiences a superb scenography, with sumptuous visions of priests, soldiers, slaves and commoners clad in splendid gowns, dancers performing, priestesses singing and some exquisite visual effects to match the elaborate choir. In Act III, by contrast, a mysterious darkness prevails as the drama reaches its climax, revealing the ambiguities in Aida's position as she waits for Radames and dreams of her homeland. And it is at this point that she is jolted into reality by her father, who tells her of Radames's planned war against the Ethiopians. She refuses to listen, and he curses her. As proud an Ethiopian as Amneris is a proud Egyptian, though, she turns Radames in, disappearing, into the bushes, as he presents his sword to the priest -- an intense moment.
In Act IV the scenery becomes darker and more mysterious, revealing only the forecourt of the judgement hall. Here Amneris has the entire scene to herself; and El-Guindi reveals her greatness. There is nothing ambiguous about this character, nothing equivocal or enigmatic. She is a faithful Egyptian, in love with an Egyptian to whom she is to be married: everything is as limpid as can be. Complexity arises from the fact that the man she loves happens to be in love with her slave. Now she bewails his treason and determines to have a final go at saving him as he is being led by guards into the judgement hall -- an initiative he rejects, refusing to renounce Aida. Enraged, Amneris sends him to his doom, yet is immediately overcome by remorse. And she casts away her jewels in despair as Radames's condemnation echoes from the hall. When the priests appear, she curses them.
It is here that she sings her most beautiful aria, having the stage all to herself. In Act IV, the voices of priests, of Ramfis and Radames are heard but never seen. Thus the cycle reaches its end. To balance the overabundance of people in the first two acts, emptiness and absence dominate the fourth. In the last scene, the two lovers, Aida and Radames, are alone singing in the tomb, while Amneris, in mourning robes, prostrates herself on the stone closing the vault, singing her final prayer to the goddess Isis. The music fades into darkness as the curtain slowly falls and sympathy for Amneris overwhelms the audience. Left all alone with her grief, she is the subject of love and pity.
With Amonasro perfectly interpreted by Mustafa Mohamed and a brilliant Ramfis performed by Reda El-Wakil, the audience could not ask for more. Yet Abdel-Wahab El-Sayed supplied a delightful king, in addition. As Radames Walid Korayem may not have been entirely convincing. But this did not make the opera less enjoyable: ambiguous or not, Ethiopian or not, Aida in her natural habitat was, as always, far more than a character or even a person. She was the great show, the spectacular operatic event we await each year. It is therefore with a sense of vindication that one gives thanks for such a performance of the great classic, Egypt's most popular opera, on the Opera House stage. It may be even more eye-catching spectacular as a large-scale open-air performance, but on the opera's stage Aida comes into its own.
