Regular readers of my opera commentary will know that I’m always wishing for spectacular productions with remarkable sets and hundreds of people on stage. While I don’t expect such things of small companies like Longborough, I get frustrated when major institutions like the Royal Opera House start cutting costs with simple costumes, streamlined sets with video projections. In pursuit of the grand staging I favour, we splurged on an opera weekend to see Aida in Verona. The festival at the Arena there could always be depended on for the kind of massive productions that delight me.
Spectacle, we got. But traditional it wasn’t. We were served up Aida meets Barbarella, played out on an enormous, slanting, mirrored stage empty but for an enormous wire mesh hand that made a fist or unfurled at different points in the action. The wreckage of a space ship lay scattered on one side of the arena. Costumes were heavy on silver, metallic and mirrors and … other than some eyes of Horus painted on white suits and black masks of Egyptian gods worn atop other robes, lacked any references to the beloved ancient Egyptian setting of the plot. In one of the more memorable get-ups, the Princess’ handmaidens wore white ball gowns with silver metallic crash helmets.
The triumph scene that leads into intermission is one of the most famous in opera. Our hero, Radames, has returned to Egypt from conquering Ethiopia and leads a procession in front of the pharoah to show off all the slaves and loot he’s brought back. Traditional productions have chariots, horses, wagon loads of treasure, dancing captives and random exotic animals. I’m fairly sure the production I saw as a kid at the baths of Caracalla in Rome had an elephant. This version of the scene has no props and no animals, just hundreds of people cutting strangely modern dance moves reflected in their mirrored costumes. One troupe of mail dancers in white trousers, bare chests and silver sequinned jackets appeared to be doing a Michael Jackson-inspired group dance complete with claps, rhythmic jumps and something that looked suspiciously like a moon walk. I actually laughed out loud. The ballet usually danced by enticing slave girls featured women in stringed, beaded dresses that rattled every time they threw themselves to the ground, which they did often, as if the director decided Verdi’s music actually needed some extra percussion.
The other scene that usually grips the imagination in Aida is at the end, when Radames and Aida find themselves sealed in a tomb to die together. Traditionally this is a monumental set on two levels, with a tomb burial chamber with Tutankhamen-style loot below while the rest of the Egyptian court continues with ceremony above. A feast for the eyes. Here, it was a wire-caged pyramid set atop an empty cube. A high school production could have carried this off.
Director Stephano Poda is also listed as lighting designer. (He’s responsible for sets, costumes and choreography, too, which his web site will tell you all about in language that lacks any sense of humility and uses the kind of pretentious, overblown phrases typical of marketers trying to spin some bit of rubbish up into high art.) The lighting effects give the production some of its most successful moments. Lasers cut across banks of generated mist creating rippling patterns of colour. In the trial scene, cast members dressed in black process around and up the back curve of the arena, and in a scene where Radames and Aida meet beside the Nile, others perform slow movements with long rods of light, as if they’re a living bed of reeds. Yet the Sci Fi element risks it all tipping into the preposterous, as the rods look a hell of a lot like light sabers. (“The Sith have arrived!” my husband whispered as the red lamp bearing characters processed up the arena backdrop.)
Though I prefer my operas traditional, I am not automatically opposed to modernity. The Met’s production of The Ring relied heavily on video and a high-tech wall of metal pillars swinging on hinges that was both a spectacle and a fresh take. But new versions should make the opera better, or give us fresh revelations about how a historic work can still teach us something about our lives today. Poda’s production did none of this. Instead, it made the classic tangibly worse, obscuring the action, hiding the main characters and generally confusing the audience. This wasn’t just our party. On an opera weekend in Verona, most of the tourists on the main piazza have come for the same performance, and conversations naturally drift to your impressions. Several people who were seeing Aida for the first time were particularly mystified.
Poda’s staging tended to mass large groups of people around the key singers, rather than setting them apart. His costumes dressed the leads in colours similar to the crowds with whom they were affiliated. Photos later showed there was some differentiation, but nothing you could see from a distance, which you’d think would be part of the basic brief when you’re performing in an ancient Roman amphitheatre seating 20,000 people. There’s no artificial amplification in the arena, nor is the action filmed and relayed to a big screen to give you a detailed look at what’s going on. So we spent a lot of time trying to figure out who was singing, and where the hell they were on the stage. When the curtain call came, there were two leads … a priest and a handmaiden, we think … who we didn’t even realise were there.
Added to this was the sound quality of a massive outdoor space. I don’t remember it being so challenging to hear the only other time I was here … also for Aida … about 20 years ago. But even at the best of times the orchestra was distant and the singing indistinct, with the exception of the clear, bright tenor who played Radames. At the worst, soloists might as well have been singing outside the arena, particularly when Poda’s staging had them singing as they walked away from the audience. I know it is anathema to opera purists, but if you really want to modernise Verona why not consider some electronic amplification?
Overall, I was bitterly disappointed. The Franco Zeffirelli designed production I saw here early in the ‘00s was one of the most extraordinary opera experiences of my life, and I wanted my husband to share that. But opera critics, it turned out, have been increasingly negative about Verona just rolling out the same productions year after year. And, of course, nobody in the opera world can be taken seriously by the opera establishment with a traditional staging. Everyone needs to be avant garde and come up with radical new interpretations. As it approached its centenary, the Arena di Verona felt it needed to give in to the pressure and reinvent its festival. Assumptions of tradition and lack of research on my part landed us in a giant experiment. Had we picked Carmen or Traviata, we could have been seen the Zefferelli classics. It was Aida, the opera they perform every year, that had to change.
Despite it all, I’m glad we went. Seeing anything inside one of the world’s best-preserved Roman amphitheatres is a memorable experience. It’s a wonderful building, and as you clamber up the extremely steep, nearly 2000-year-old steps to get in you can’t help but reflect on all who’ve come before you. The vibe in Verona is fantastic, with thousands of people all there in pursuit of the same thing, quick to start up conversations and find common ground. It’s much like the atmosphere of fans travelling for an international sporting event, except the chat strays to critiques of the orchestra and debates about your favourite soprano.
We were also there on the opening weekend of the whole festival, adding a large dash of Italian glamour. Though we attended on the Saturday night, we were able to walk around the park that would become the red-carpeted hospitality area, take our own photos in front of the logo wall (every noteworthy event has to have one) and stand with the rest of the plebs watching the celebrities turn up. I didn’t recognise anyone, though Sophia Loren and George and Amal Clooney were there somewhere. But fashion watching was a blast, and a fly-over by the Italian air force trailing red, white and green vapour trails makes for a memorable dinner.
So yes, to any of my opera-loving readers, it is worth making the effort to see something at the Arena di Verona festival. You just might want to do a bit more research before you buy your tickets to see what kind of production you’re getting. Whatever the details, you’ll have a story to tell back home.
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