by Natalia Di Bartolo – Michieletto's new production at Bayerische Staatsoper, with Rustioni on the podium and an impeccable cast.
By now we are used to, often obtorted neck, to attend transpositions of the works in other places, in other times. But, in the case of Damiano Michieletto and his staging of Aida, to Bayerische Staatsoper On July 23, 2023, the speech must be deepened.
Scandalize for this staging, perhaps, would be silly. More sensible, however, would be to realize that to write it it would be necessary to carry out Two reviews, because the viewer a Munich He attended simultaneously with Two different shows.
Obviously, what is expected of a work is that it is performed as God commands. And here The first review, the one concerning the melodrama “Aida” by Giuseppe Verdi, A. Ghislanconi bookletters, leads to underline, with a lively applause, first of all the Concentration and Orchestra Directorate of Maestro Daniele Rustioni. The director gave one admirable reading of the masterpiece of Verdi: Never rebooting, never over the lines or overwhelming, but chiseled, embroidered, almost. It was so nice to listen to that music, even in the parties not sung, its nuances, the solemnity that is not stereotype, the beauty and clarity of the sounds of the magnificent Monaco Orchestra to applaud an evening of grace. The shining dynamics, the beauty and adhesion of the entire agogical trend of the Verdian work enchanted the listener.
On such wings, therefore, “he flew” An extraordinary cast As a whole, worthy of the conductor, in which not even the smallest part was interpreted in a unpleasant or imperfect way.
La bella Elena Stickhina in the role of the title, he showed vocal maturity and great musicality, led by the chiaroscuro of the dynamics of Maestro Rustioni, has been able to grasp the spirit of the character and made it the intimate essence.
Riccardo Massi, in the part of Radames, was impeccable, he missed the “pianissimo “dying” of the ending of “Celeste Aida”, but forgive him: it is improb. Everything was performed with him in a well -set, full -bodied voice, which gave his contribution to the concerted, who was never excessively heroic nor, at the same time, too much “lyric”.
L'Amneris di Judit Kutasi It was of great importance: it was enough to look at the support, planted on the ground like a oak, in its posture, to guess a technique and a voice that proved to be suitable for the role, with a decidedly robust and well -modulated vocality.
George Petean's AMONASRO It was, as always, of remarkable interpretative and sound intensity. The baritone has impersonated a sore and authoritative father, also suffering an unexpected direction, because he was killed by a pistol of Ramfis, at the end of the III act.
The aforementioned Ramfis, Alexander Köpeczi, gave great proof of himself and equally Il Re, Alexandros Stavakakris. All pleasant i secondary characters, magnificent the Bayerische Staatoper choir, directed by Johannes Knecht.
So, musically, we witnessed A manual aid. So, one wonders: where is the point? It is, as first mentioned, in taking place on the stage of two sizes, which were intertwined, sometimes with a certain studied efficacy, sometimes with involuntary, understandable negative impact.
Therefore, the second review.
Not that The theme of war, of the victory and its costs in terms of human lives and mutilations and wounds that certainly do not apply a miserable medal to value; of the pain of both rival peoples and above all of the defeated people; The inconveniences, hunger, desolation are not to be treated in a show, on the contrary! They are, unfortunately, of great, particular actuality. But here's the other nodal point: Why do it manipulating a work of art like Aida, which has its own temporal connotation and precise location?
Here is the outfit. Indeed, With the excuse that the characters of the Verdian masterpiece are among the most stereotyped in the history of the melodrama, to say of the Michieletto, and that you want to deepen the intimate part inherent in the plot, you can't take the briga of Create a show overlapping it to another show.
The competent viewer looked at that desolate gym in the Scenes by Paolo Fantin, illuminated by Alessandro Carletti, con i costumes sloppy of Carla Teti, the ashes and the smoke of the war, the white coffin of the killed child and inevitably imagined the Palazzo del Faraone automatically, the sumptuous guise, the turquoise and gold jewels, the triumphal march and the sinuous dances instead of the Coreography DI Thomas Wilhelm, the splendor of some historic staged. Nobody has the right in the work theater, today, to force spectators to a mere “imagination”! Why alter the’Perfect balance created by Verdi To express however correct and important concepts? You do it by creating A separate show, in which Verdi's music does not become one “Excuse me” to have an unparalleled soundtrack, with the flash-backs and the projections of the “point of view” Di radames, the care of rocafilm, that so much the Michieletto film director He also loves and brings to the theatrical director scene.
Listen to the words of the booklet and hear them pronounced by characters who had nothing to do with what is written, moreover in an aulic language which can be that of Ghislanzoni, stunned the competent viewer, gave a sense of anachronism to what was pronounced by singing. At the same time, it happened that those who assist the show more Michieletto that at the work of Verdi, Anelase to a more modern language, more relevant, more shipped.
Therefore? Therefore These experiments fail, unfortunately, and so The two shows hindered and damaged each other. Probably the Michieletto He acted as a view: at times, to give taste to his unique spectator, he dared to try to put Verdi In the background. Instead, for those who, like the writer, were capable of follow the two shows at the same time, here's what perhaps the Michieletto he did not even realize: that at times he was The splendor of Verdian music ad Annient his show and transport the listener to a sort of limbo, in which music seemed to have become hymn and prayer. Thanks to the director Rustioni, It was an experience that saved the work.
Only in this way who writes can he explain and communicate their sensations.
The triumph of the public who accepted the work was certainly not thanks to the director, but of Verdi and his Exceptional interpreters. Therefore, based on what has been written above, it is expected, possibly shortly, A pleasant film by the film director Damiano Michieletto, in which the soundtrack maybe be “inspired” all'Ajira Di Giuseppe Verdi and that they tell, in modern and usable language that with the booklet of the Ghislanzoni He has nothing to do, the misfortunes of a war without place and without name and the private events of the characters who live it and who cannot respond to the names of Aida, nor of Radames, nor of any other of the work. Or yes, why not? Who prohibits it? Another Aida, homonymous. That of Michieletto, though. But not at the Opera House, nor how it was proposed to Munich.
Natalia Dantas ©
Photo di W. Hösl, Bavarian State Opera