Aida in Avignon: A Space-Age Egypt Saved by Its Orchestra

Verdi's "Aida" opened at Opéra Grand Avignon in October, directed by Frédéric Roels and conducted by Débora Waldman, and the music won. The staging did not.

Anyone who knows the Avignon stage might have worried whether it could hold Aida's crowd of principals and its large orchestra. The premiere, reviewed by OperaWire, put that fear to rest. The real problem sat elsewhere: actors had little room to move in the choral scenes, but the crowd scenes stayed manageably modest.

What went wrong with the design?

Quite a lot, by the reviewer's account. Bruno De Lavenère's sets, Lionel Lesire's costumes and Laurent Castaingt's lighting, ordered by Roels, made the drama resemble B or even Z-grade science-fiction films from the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Aida and Amneris wore heavily veiled costumes in psychedelic colors. The Egyptian priests resembled Lovecraftian secret cults. Amonasro appeared in draped costume with garish necklaces.

The lighting ran from orange-yellow to grey, always dazzling, with neon lights cutting across the space around a central menhir — reminiscent of a spaceship. At times it evoked the deserts of Dune, or the infinite universe of Flash Gordon. The effect, the reviewer writes, produced unease bordering on laughter.

What did the orchestra deliver?

Once that unease passed, the Avignon-Provence National Orchestra struck hardest. Waldman achieved a superb balance between strings and brass — always a delicate task in Verdi. She drew out a resemblance to Handel's oratorios and certain Rossini opera seria (serious operas), while pointing toward the orchestral narrative Verdi would later develop into a character in its own right.

The duets between Radamès and Aida, and between Aida and Amonasro, stood out for exactly this reason.

How did the singers fare?

The vocal performances impressed overall, with one exception. Spanish tenor Eduardo Aladrén, singing Radamès, struggled with breath control and tone color in the high notes of Act One's "Se quel guerrier io fossi!". His middle register was clear and almost velvety. Later acts brought better breath control, but the upper register still failed to convince.

The rest of the male cast retained beautiful colors and textures, embodying the institutions they portrayed. Georgian bass-baritone Nika Guliashvili showed a nuanced low register with articulation of the highest calibre, demonstrated in "Vieni d'Iside al tempio". Cameroonian bass Jacques-Greg Belobo, as the King, maintained nobility in expression and acting, notably in "Al tuo consiglio io cedo." Baritone David Vardan brought restrained yet explosive power to Amonasro.

Who carried the drama?

The female roles. French soprano Claire de Monteil sang the title role with a timbre capturing both teenager and young woman, conveying the maturity forced upon her. Her solos — "Ah pietà! Che più mi resta?" and "Qui Radamès verrà!… Che vorrà dirmi?" — left the greatest impression, with a youthful freshness that "trembled from within."

French mezzo-soprano Marie Gautrot, as Amneris, matched her: a sharpness and incisiveness perfectly suited to the role, yet still evoking pity in "L'aborrita rivale a me sfuggia…".

The chorus functioned as a distinct character, as in Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra" or "Don Carlos". The men and women in unison in Acts One and Two, and the women around Amneris, served the Egyptians and Ethiopians well — credit to chorus masters Alan Woodbridge and Noëlle Gény.

The verdict: overlook the stage design, and the musical qualities more than make up for it. A house of this size, proving it can field Verdi at full strength, has earned the right to attempt him again.