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OPERA
Aida ★★★★
Opera House Joan Sutherland Theatre, until July 21
Davide Livermore’s production of Verdi’s Aida, with sets by Gio Forma and digital design by D-Wok, replaces the triumphal pageantry traditionally accompanying this work with hyperreal digital images that appear and dissolve on mobile screens like scenes in a fantasy video.
Metallic snakes slither, blood-red clouds swirl and lightning flashes over moonlit water. Savage beasts, Egyptian figures in profile and a naked goddess with a swelling belly look on, all possessed of a disturbing hypnotic stare. These digital images create their own tension, alongside the eternal, irreconcilable conflict of love and loyalty that Verdi develops with such mastery.
Leah Crocetto stars as Ethiopian princess Aida in this Opera Australia production.Credit: Keith Saunders
Leah Crocetto as Aida has a voice of enveloping power and warmth, sustaining the soliloquy of act one with colour and expressively moulded line, soaring magisterially over the chorus and orchestra in the triumphal march in act two.
Elena Gabouri, as her rival Amneris, has a voice of firmer edge, effective in moments of high drama. She sang her climactic scene with tragic force, maintaining strength both in clamouring high notes and in guttural tones in the low register.
As ill-fated hero Radames, Najmiddin Mavlyanov had the most naturally attractive voice of the cast, with nutty-brown richness and sinuous intensity that was not overdone so that it retained a fresh bloom.
The duets of this opera are crucial to the unfolding of the narrative’s central conflicts.
By contrast, Warwick Fyfe, as Aida’s father, the defeated Ethiopian king Amonasro, bristled with energy and fierce defiance.
Roberto Scandiuzzi as the vengeful high priest Ramfis had a forceful textured sound, haughty and imposing. As the King, David Parkin sang with a leaner, penetrating tone.
The duets of this opera are crucial to the unfolding of the narrative’s central conflicts. Nurtured by subtly insistent flexibility of tempo from conductor Stuart Stratford, the various pairings between the three principals, Crocetto, Gabouri and Mavlyanov, sustained taut engagement through balance and strength of musical shape.
As well as the splendour of the victory scene in act two, with radiant trumpet choirs from the high galleries, the Opera Australia Orchestra under Stratford brought out the nuanced originality of the quieter moments of Verdi’s score.
The Opera Australia Chorus in turn swelled resonantly, laughed playfully and prayed reverently, always with glowing texture and high professionalism.
Much of the weight of the battle and victory is taken by a group of women dancers who, under Allie Graham’s choreography for this revival, combined grace with convulsiveness, agility and aggression.
Sydney Morning Herald subscribers can enjoy 2-for-1 tickets* to the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales during June 2023. Click here for more details.
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