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Verdi’s pyramid love triangle
REVIEW: AIDA
London Coliseum
AIDA: a tragic love story, and a name that inspires romantic images of ancient Egypt in all its glory – the colours, the pyramids, the inscrutable Sphinx and the rich, fertile plains of the river Nile that give way to barren deserts; a vast and mysterious land that haunted the dreams of Thomas de Quincey, filling them with “cancerous kisses by crocodiles”; and a land whose civilisation was interwoven with the savagery of slavery.
It is the fate of one of these slaves, the eponymous Aida, that plays out in Verdi’s
masterpiece.
Aida is an ethiopian slave who serves the Pharaoh’s daughter, Amneris. Both Aida and Amneris are in love with Radames, the captain of the guards and a hero of the Egyptian military. Radames loves Aida, but his head is turned by the possibility of marrying the princess, and the prospect of one day becoming Pharaoh himself.
With this ominous love triangle looming large on the horizon, the scene is set for heartbreak, tragedy and an accidental betrayal that quite literally seals the fate of two of the protagonists.
Verdi’s operas are hard work. This is not the kind of opera used to sell ice-cream or to announce the start of football coverage on BBC2. But if you stick with it, the rewards are immense.
From the jaw-dropping spectacle of large-scale set-pieces to the heartbreaking delicacy of several of the arias, Aida manages to evoke the full-scale of a dynasty at war, while keeping our attention focused on intimacy of the young lovers – and full credit to director Jo Davies for not smothering this dynamic with overblown sets and distracting pomp.
Claire Rutter excels in the title role, as does her rival in love, Jane Dutton. John Hudson (Radames, pictured left) sings well, but his acting is a little flat, and leaves us feeling all-too-neutral about a divisive and complicated character.
Matthew Best, as ever, is rock solid in the role of the chief priest, Ramsis, and routinely steals scenes in which he play a relatively minor role.
Gérard Korsten was outstanding in the pit, prompting an air-punching thank you from
Dutton at the end of the night.
The ovation from the audience would suggest that everyone there felt the same.
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