Aida from Earls Court in 1988 to the Sunderland Empire 2016 via the Metropolitan Opera House New York.

I have experienced the Opera Aida live twice, the first time at Earls Court in the 1988, and on Saturday 29^th October 2016 at the Empire Theatre Sunderland, and twice via a cinema relay from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, once at the Tyneside cinema (2009) and at the Cineworld Bolden (2012). I also have the 1989 and 2009 DVD performances of the opera from the Met and I watched the first two acts from the DVD’s when writing these notes. I decided against going to the Cineworld, Bolden to watch the relay of AIDA the Sidney Harbour Bridge, earlier the year and the only instance where I will try to see this opera again if there is a relay performance from the Royal Opera House or somewhere like La Scala with soloists I know and would like to hear again.

Aida was not the first opera which precipitated my interest in this form of art entertainment experience for as a child I was taken to see performances of Carmen and the double bill of Pagliacci and Cavalleria rusticana by a touring company which came to Croydon and it was some years later when I left school and first worked in local government that I purchased an extended play 45 record of the Rome Opera Chorus with the Triumphant march from Aida. It was a very expensive but which the owner of the record shop in Stafford Road, Wallington apologised costing as much, if not more, than a full vinyl long play record.

Much later when taking the family to watch the makeshift 15000 seat Earls Court production with a 45 metre stage and 600 performers, I regarded the opera only as a spectacle which had not lived up to expectations at the time and where in fairness the evidence is that Verdi created the opera with a spectacle in mind, including orchestral periods which enable dancers, numerous fighting men and their prisoners together with the spoils of a successful war to be paraded before the Egyptian rulers and their people.  The Harvey Goldsmith production at Earls Court was regarded as a major event with Diana, the Princess of Wales attending. There was no choice of seats and those allocated to us were at the back of the vast arena so noting that others were moving into the vacant tiered seating which provide a side view over the stage we rushed to joining them and we all, especially our daughters, enjoyed seeing what was going on behind the front of stage. Another two decades were to past when during part of the intervals in the productions relayed from the Lincoln centre in New York, the camera are left on showing the effort that goes in to preparing the scenery for the next act.

It was only during the first relay from the Met this season that I earned why there has been so much spectacle in their productions as when the Opera House was first constructed on its original site all the effort went it to create an opulent and memorable experience in terms of comfort and view for the audience and the backstage was so cramped that scenery had to be left outside the theatre in the open air. This explains the vastness of the backstage at the Met which enables the scenery for more than one production to be available and it was interesting to note the similarity with the grand march sequence in 1989 and 2009 which occurs in[CS1]  second Act.  There appeared to be some 300 performers on the stage added to which there is the full orchestra, the huge backstage crew at the Met, the technical crew and the additional technical crew for the live relay rivalling the boast of the 600 performers at Olympia, London and remembering that the two performances were only separated by a year (88-89) that at the Met outshines that attempted at Earls Court. (The met has a backstage crew of 150 and 50 makeup artists).

There is a saying in football about a game having two halves meaning that what takes place in the first is no indication of what can happen in the second and this is true for Aida where emphasis of the third and fourth Acts is on the relationship between the three main characters and not on spectacle. The nature of the opera is that is requires strong voices to command our attention over the visual and orchestral experience as well as communicate the emotional intensity, the passions aroused by two women wanting one man. This tends to mean that the principal soloists are experienced, older and of more large frame than the storybook suggests and poses the issue of credibility which opera houses now are trying to address, particularly because of the close ups available in relay and which  command audiences of several hundred thousand worldwide compared with the 3800 seats at the Met, 2250 at the Royal Opera House and the 1800 at the Sunderland Empire which was full on previous visit to see Sunny Afternoon the story of the Kinks and a third full for Aida.

In 1998 Earls Court production Aida an Ethiopian personal slave to  Princess Amneris, the daughter of the Egyptian King was played by an aging opera star which challenged the central issue of the Opera, the willingness of the young commander of the Egyptian Army to reject the opportunity to marry the daughter of the King, and one day rule his homeland and then betray his country by revealing the tactics proposed by the army in defending  themselves from an attack by the Ethiopians, discovering too late that Aida is the daughter of the Ethiopian King, and that her father overhears what he has told her.

There was a similar problem when Dolora Zajick reprised the role of Princess Amneris, the daughter of the King in 2009, and which she had made her own on the same stage in 1989.  Dolora has played the role some 250 times and in 2009 she received a remarkable in theatre audience reaction with applause in the cinema which was then something I had not previously experienced since my childhood and youth.

For a time, I bought a subscription to the online services provided by the Met and viewed the 1989 performance, before buying the DVD’s of both performances which demonstrates the capacity of a singer to add greater emotional intensity as they have personally experience the realities of life. In the 1989 production Placido Domingo performs the roles of Rademes the commander of the Egyptian army.  The ages,  and therefore the physical appearance of the three stars was appropriate with Placido 48, Aida 30 an the Princess 37 so although  they were performing roles of younger individuals the passionate relationships were convincing, from the outset although small in terms of the height and grandeur of the stage setting they were able to impose themselves on the audience from the opening first act when Rademes declares  his love for Aida “Celeste Aida” and three engage with each other “Vieni o dilletta appesati” as Rademes and Aida hide their love although Amneris had become suspicious in the duet, “Quala insalata gioia nel tuo suardo”.

In the 2009 production, the singing was extraordinary but the idea of all consuming passion between Amneris (57), and Radamés played by the large frame South African Johan Botha who died of cancer earlier this year aged 51 and between Botha and Violeta Urmana, the Lithuanian Mezzo soprano, who is coy about her age.

This contrasted with the soloists in the Ellen Kent company production, the third of her Operas experienced at the Empire Theatre in Sunderland and with two more booked for March 2017. Ellen Kent provides the opportunity for young soloists as well as inviting local stage and dance schools to participate in their touring productions making live opera accessible at a reasonable price. I paid £85 for three operas with a central aisle seat in the stalls midway in the theatre so I was close enough to see the facial expression with constantly shift gaze to view the sub titles above the stage.  The Theatre is part of the AGT chain where you pay a significant premium for online and telephone bookings.

The cinema relays have increased in price as they have in frequency and popularity with every cinema chain having showings although not at every cinema and where at Cineworld there has been a recent increase in the Ballets from around the world. An adult going to the Nabucco relay at Cineworld will pay £20 compared to my £8.10 as a senior with an unlimited card and £28 to view live in Sunderland, while individual performance relays at the Tyneside Cinema in the circle with superior seating and in theatre bar and snacks £30 with a 10-performance season ticket £240. Parts of the cost of the reasonably priced seats at the Sunderland Empire and the Theatre Royal Newcastle is the extensive changes made to enable West End Musical Productions to transfer and I pay under £30 to see performances at Northern Stage and much less at Live Theatre Newcastle with professional actors and creative scenery.

I did wonder how the Ellen Kent company would cope with the spectacle aspects of Aida which was tackled in two ways. The first is the use of digital projection and lazar projection fire and which worked to the extent than someone near me said WoW. The Royal Operate House has been experimenting with projection for some time as mentioned in their production of Don Giovanni where facts about the villain were projected onto the three-floor structure which occupies the stage for the greater part of the opera and was not in the recent Met production. I am looking forward to the Royal Shakespeare production of the Tempest Stratford which is going to use Motion capture projection and avatars or the first time. Ellen Kent also used a small group of dancers compared to the fifty plus at the met and the triumphant march was more symbolic in terms of the numbers and artefacts although I did think the carts of gold bullion effective and a performance of a solo dancer playing with fire was entertaining.

In the present Ellen Kent production Liza Kadelenik performs the role of Amneris, a beautiful Ukrainian Opera singer who has updated her Facebook profile with a photo of herself posing in front of Sunderland Empire (she has also toured as Carmen with the Scottish Opera), and Ecaterina Danu as Aida, about whom I can find nothing, and  Giorgio Meladze, the Spanish tenor who has toured with the company in previous years plays Rademes and impressed the audience if the volume of applause which greeted him is a measure of their appreciation. He immediately accepted my request to be friends on Facebook. Age can be deceptive among Opera singers but the trio and most the chorus came across as under 30 and comparatively slim.

In the 2012 Met production, there was a new conductor Fabio Luisio, interviewed during the interval in one of several interviews, with the two female leads having similar features, the worldly experienced Russian Mezzo Soprano, Olga Borodina (then 49) as the Princess and the mysterious Liudmyla Monastryrska (age undisclosed) in her debut role outside the Latvian Opera House in the Ukraine, where she had toiled as a lead for many years unrecognised until now by the rest of the operatic world. Nothing appears to be published about this woman except that she had kept in contact with her singing teacher who was now ninety-two. She needed the help of an interpreter for her brief interview.

“In the 2012 the part of Radamés, the appointed army commander, is played by Roberto Alana a man approaching his sixtieth year but who looks ten years younger with an extremely passionate and tender tenor voice. Used to powerful singers in the title role he was booed by some when he performed the role at La Scala Milan in 2006 and to the horror of the management he walked off the stage not to reappear. After the death of his first wife he married the great soprano Angela Georgiou but their relations became stormy to the extent that she refused to perform with him in the 2009 Metropolitan Production of Carmen which I also saw live and in truth felt he had been miscast. The marriage has continued after separation and contrary to the audience reaction in Rome I thought he brought an important new dimension to the role and one which echoed the approach of the conductor. It is become more than an opera of two parts”

Back to story and with Rademes off to lead the army consecrated by the High Priest Ramifies at the Isis Temple Aida is torn between anxiety for him and for her father the Ethiopian King, a fact which is unknown to the Egyptians

In the first part of the second Act the Princess, having grown more suspicious of Aida tests by saying that Radamés has been killed and therefore Aida reveals her position, but hides her distress on learning that her people have been defeated.

There is then the Triumphant March scene famous all over world because of its spectacle with the climax when the prisoners are brought in and Aida sees her father, the king, in shackles. The Egyptian king offers Radamés anything he wishes so he pleads for the freedom for the slaves who can return home except for Aida and her father who has said the King had died. The Egyptian King then throws the proverbial spanner in the works by giving Aida to Radamés in marriage, a gift which cannot be refused and which is to the great pleasure of the Princess.

There are half hour intervals between the first two acts at the Met, the changes between the third and fourth acts are made with the audience remaining in their seats. At the second interval at the Empire someone asked if the opera had ended as a lot people made their way to bars and toilets! An interesting development by AGT is the Ordertorium, the at seat ordering of drinks and snack from a provided menu of 30 items and where the best option is £6 for a variety box either a 187ml bottle of wine, crisps and coated raisins or bottle of water, cream, crisps and raisins and which compares to £9 is bought separately. I paid £4.50 for a bottle of Becks at the bar prevented from entering until an hour before the show where as the AGT offer half price drinks if you order before 6.30. The foursome who joined my table and where we had a grand chat about football in North East as Sunderland had surrendered against Arsenal in the midday kick off and other things North East ordered a bottle of wine for the interval at £18. I had the £3 ice cream at one interval rather than the larger £4 tub and panicked through the second as I could not find my car park payment ticket.

In 2012 I wrote that a feature of all Met Relays and since introduced at the ROH is that before performance and during the intervals the lead singers are interviewed, by often by the soprano Renée Fleming,

“After the interval, we learn that the response of the freed Ethiopians, with unbeknown to Ramadi’s, the father of Aida is their King, having assembled a new army and have launched a new campaign. Amneris goes to Temple to pray until dawn and thus can overhear when Radamés and Aida meet in secret and he is persuaded by her to run away together after she has met up with her father and he persuades her to try and find out the battle plans. Radamés, not aware of this aspect, suggests they travel in a different direction from the Egyptian army, unaware what he is doing giving away the army location.”

“As soon as Radamés reveals the route plan, Aida ‘s father reveals himself and he and his daughter beg Radamés to flee with them. He is horrified at having unwittingly given away the battle route information and when confronted by Amneris who has summoned the High Priest, he surrenders to their judgement. Their decision is for him to be entombed in the vaults below the temple, and this constitutes the final act after Amneris pleads with him to give up Aida and she will plead with her father to save him.  When he refuses, she turns away from him, momentarily.”

“In the tomb Radamés finds that Aida having learned of the verdict has not accompanied her father and hidden in the tomb to wait for him. She explains that they will face death together in each other’s arms.”

“Meanwhile above them and unaware that the couple are together, the Princess is beyond consolation for having given Radamés over to the judgement of the Priests. While everything beforehand was outstanding, it is the dramatic singing of the last act which for me has taken the opera to a new height.”

I also wrote 2012 before visiting the Royal Opera House in London that there have been few cultural experiences of a similar impact in my life, hearing traditional jazz for the first time in a Soho cellar, hearing Verdi’s Requiem Mass at a Royal Albert Hall promenade season both when seventeen years old.  There have been other magical moments from the Live Aid Concert, to the stage musicals Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, to the Bruce Springsteen concerts and to hearing Louis Armstrong playing half a century ago at the Davis Theatre in Croydon. I suspect that it was only from the accumulation of these and more general life experience emotional highs and lows than one can appreciate the magnificence of the voices and their emotional intensity.

“Then to be able to experience the original production using the same set and costumes and libretto added an even greater dimension to the experience. I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity and to now be able to experience more,” was how I also wrote in 2009.

“It is therefore against this benchmark that I most judge the latest production Borodina is good but no one can approach the emotional intensity of Zajick. I will need to experience the performance of the 1989 and 2009 roles of Aida again to compare with that of Liudmyla whose voice I thought matched that of Olga. For my Christmas present to myself I have purchased the two DVDs which have become available together with the 2008 performance of Madam Butterfly.  Stefan Koran was the priest, George Agonize played father and Miklos Sebestyén the King.”  Since writing this I bought the 3D performance of Carmen and plan the original performance of Angela Georghiou of La Traviata for this Christmas coming.

I relaxed during the third and fourth acts of Aida at the Empire thinking that I must have left the ticket on the front car seat, only to find on return that I had not! I had parked the car close to the exit so summoned an assistant from what has become a 24/7 car park anticipating having to pay a premium for the lost ticket. No problem he said giving me a piece of paper to write down the registration number which I immediately forgot although I have had the car for over five years! Because of a digital CCTV system, they confirm the time arrival so you only need to pay for the hours of use 5 x 50p and two days later when checking I had my unlimited card in the metal wallet I carry, there was the car park ticket. I must remember to prepay on next visit.

I usually book shows on the Thursday because the Bridges shopping centre has late closing with free parking until 9. I was surprised that everything was closed when I arrived just after 6 on a Saturday so I could go through Debenhams and although there was part passage through the shopping centre the main way was closed as I had intended to go through to McDonalds for a coffee. In instead I had a good walk around the town centre which give the Saturday night was at that point dead. There was a lot of noise coming from the Vesta Tilley pub close to the theatre which was showing Premier Football in relay. Later, the way back to the car park there were some early Halloween revellers, looked like students with ne being sick and as the car existed there was party of young men five of whom were all dressed similarly as Jockeys which seemed odd

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