Rising to a spectacular climax halfway through, descending in an intimate, tragic fall, Verdi’s Aida (1871) is as problematic as it is grand and popular. The story of love across the divide – between an enslaved Ethiopian princess and an Egyptian army captain – has enduring traction. How, though, to deal with a triumphal march, famed for an irresistibly snazzy trumpet tune, that celebrates death by numbers, all set against an uneasy, Egyptomania backdrop of pharaonic power and bloodshed? These questions are an opera director’s challenge. Robert Carsen faces them head on in his 2022 production for the Royal Opera, designed by Miriam Buether, now back and conducted by Daniel Oren in its second revival (director Gilles Rico).
Exoticism is banished. The setting is non-specific, a totalitarian state at war. Military hallmarks of China, Russia and the US co-join in the panoply of flags, tiered seating, peaked caps and decorations. Ancient Egypt, far from absent though stripped of the usual iconography, is a definitive and ghostly presence, achieved through a suggestion of the colossal: enclosed court, temple, sanctuary deflected through a prism of fascist architectural style (and also, incidentally, providing welcome aural support for the singers). This sombre focus puts Verdi’s preoccupations – war, death and homeland – into perspective. Easy to forget when elephants, horses and belly dancers, beloved of arena opera stagings, hold sway.
Leading an international cast, the Italian star soprano Anna Pirozzi, a Covent Garden favourite and an established Aida, sang the title role, often affecting but not always at one with Oren’s phrasing. This was true of all the singers, who will surely find their footing, and greater subtlety, as the revival settles. As her lover Radames, the Tenerife-born tenor Jorge de León (who has sung the role at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, but was a late replacement for Riccardo Massi) revelled in ear-popping top notes. In a striking Royal Opera debut, American mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis conveyed heartbreak and anger as the king’s daughter Amneris. The Mongolian baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat sang Aida’s father, Amonasro, with cogent beauty. He delighted in the outburst of applause at his curtain call.
The evening’s most impressive work came from the chorus, throughout but especially the hushed male voices, with Ramfis (Alexander Köpeczi), in their prayer for victory at the end of Act 1. The orchestral colouring, from delicate to ferocious, with murkily ominous woodwind solos, was a reminder of Verdi’s powers of invention at this later stage of his long career – with Otello and Falstaff still to come.
Chineke!, founded in 2015 by the double bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku, is recognised as Europe’s first majority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra. It acts as a vital conscience. One of its aims is to “champion change”, opening up conversations out of which – if slowly; issues of education and culture are also at stake – progress can occur. Their 10th anniversary programme, conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren, consisted entirely of music commissioned and premiered over the past decade. Without a major masterpiece, the programme felt episodic and perhaps did not elicit the ensemble’s most sparkling playing, but was enthusiastically received.
James B Wilson’s Free-man, inspired by the anti-racist Bristol bus boycott of 1963, stood out for its lyrical textures, and Daniel Kidane’s Dream Song – setting words from Martin Luther King and composed for the reopening of Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2018 – was rewarding on second hearing. Notably accomplished, Roderick Williams’s Three Songs from Ethiopia Boy is a setting of poems by Chris Beckett, and made exciting, aurally distinctive demands on the orchestra. Williams, as baritone soloist in his own work, lit up the stage with humour, almost dancing his way through and bringing uplift and celebration.
The unpredictability of concert life is not its only allure – or, for some of us, addiction – but nothing is more rewarding than being ambushed unexpectedly. The Paddington Trio, making their Kings Place debut, were new to me, though it turns out they have won numerous first prizes in the four years since they began playing together. I see why. Their programme of Mendelssohn (Trio No 2 in C minor), Sam Perkin (Freakshow, 2016), Ellen Lindquist (Shining Through, 2023) and Shostakovich (Piano Trio No 2 in E minor) looked intriguing enough on paper: two familiar masterworks, two novelties. It proved ever more revelatory as the concert progressed.
These virtuosic musicians – Finnish violinist Tuulia Hero, Irish cellist Patrick Moriarty and American pianist Stephanie Tang – play as one, hardly needing to refer to the music. That they lean in and bend towards each other need make no difference to their musicality: that very act can sometimes appear an affectation. Not here. They lived every note. Shostakovich completed his second trio in 1944, dedicating it to a close friend who died during the course of its wartime composition. Its four movements encompass the gamut of emotion, from the muted cello harmonics of the opening lament to the wild maelstrom of grief in the finale, based on a Jewish dance theme. The work ends, as if exhausted, with a whispered, major key chord: stoicism, sufferance, release. Music can take you anywhere, when played like this.
Star ratings (out of five)
Aida ★★★
Chineke! ★★★
Paddington Trio ★★★★★
