“Aida” in Berlin: The fatal crash of a provocateur

2023-10-08 16:22:55

On some opening nights, you somehow already know after five minutes of play that there will be an opera accident of at least moderate severity. The new “Aida” at the Berlin State Opera was such an evening.

There was a moderately gripping preludio. This was followed on a bright white cube stage by an indefinable B/W video through rods, elevator shafts or mine tunnels. Then a group of gray extras threw invisible objects into the audience in silent protest.

A guy in a velvet tuxedo jacket got rid of it in order to put on the uniform and boots presented on a tray by a disco girl, while he was admonished by a military chaplain. And at the back there was an installation made of sewn-together shirts, under which a bold blonde immediately strolled as the first gallery visitor.

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Welcome to old Memphis, with a new attempt at the almost impossible Egyptian classic “Aida”. The former scandalous director Calixto Bieito sank it in a sea of ​​theater art blood in Basel 13 years ago.

On his second attempt at the State Opera, he couldn’t come up with anything coherent. And it couldn’t just have been due to the absence – as was rumored – of the majority of the main actors until the piano rehearsal. A meaningful direction of characters is only present in rudiments.

Cleaning ladies with horror clown masks

We summarize: It’s somehow about a tastelessly equipped oil dictatorship in the Middle East with a king who, in Versace pajamas with a fur coat, looks like a particularly spoiled son of the Sultan of Brunei (Grigory Skharupa sings it properly without any nuances). A general doesn’t like to fight and can’t decide between love for Princess Amneris (glamor blondie) and the enslaved Ethiopian ruler’s daughter Aida, who also shakes her hips here in a green, glittering evening dress.

There are sword harriers covered in fruit blood, cleaning women with horror clown masks, tortured children cannibalizing electronic waste, wrecked container ships, criticism of colonialism, an underground warehouse of exotic animal skins, banners with “Let’s make lots of money” slogans, a totally chaotic triumphal march with people in crinolines and roast skirts 19th century, refugees shot during a love duet in the mini room.

Who actually needs fur coats in Egypt?

Source: Herwig Prammer

Overall, there are a lot of cheap dramaturgical set pieces, but no functional, coherently told “Aida” production. In a sterile, interchangeable stage set made of mobile modules by Rebecca Ringst and Ingo Krügler’s banal costumes, only helpless, disinterested embarrassment spreads throughout the evening. As always in Berlin since the last Lindenoper production 28 years ago and two subsequent ones at the Deutsche Oper.

Of course, this should have been the annual unity day high mass for Daniel Barenboim. However, that has been history in this house since the end of January. So now Nicola Luisotti stood at the Staatskapelle podium and did his job properly. But all of the many instrumental subtleties of late Verdi remained only on the surface, sounding polished but rarely inspired. Sound units that separated from each other were routinely quickly captured again.

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The only interesting thing: the ending of the “Celeste Aida” arias for tenors without a real diminuendo, which goes back to Toscanini. Yusif Eyvazov is now also celebrating this, playing mechanically and singing like a saw. The voice is now somewhat more composed, but there is still a coarse vocal instrument cutting through coarse wood with a tinny loudness.

And while there are protests against his wife Anna Netrebko, no one is upset when Eyvazov is said to have patriotically supported his Azerbaijani presidential dictator Ilham Aliyev in the war in Nagorno-Karabakh during rehearsals in his joke role as Baku opera director.

In Berlin he executes extras as Radames, only to die more beautifully with Aida in the body bag. Or were the few boos in the end intended for this political and moral tastelessness?

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René Pape was once again the stoic, booming Ramphis, Gabriele Viviani the super-powerful Amonasro. Marina Rebeka’s Aida is beautiful and balanced, but always an unruffled vocal ounce too small. And as a character, not present until the absurd Gilda ending in the “Rigoletto” potato sack.

This “Aida”, which should actually be called “Amneris”, is only worthwhile because of Elina Garanca. She enjoys squeezing the entire emotional content out of the grateful role, is bitchy jealous and ends up totally destroyed in her wedding dress. She even confidently wins the battle against the horrible wig. She sings effortlessly and voluminously, as majestic as she is fragile, vulgarly nouveau riche and transparently touching. That’s how prima donna works!

And we’d rather hope for the touring “Aida – The Arena Opera Spectacle 2024” as an “event of superlatives, a feast for the senses”: with a temple facade measuring more than 330 square meters, a 700 square meter Nile in blue satin and a five meter high Plastic elephants. The honestly folk opera classic in XXL format – soon back in German sports stadiums.