Aida goes to the movies

The grandeur of pharaoh's courts in ancient Egypt gets transplanted in a modern-day film set in a new Opera Hong Kong production of Verdi's Aida. Peter Gordon brings a ringside view.

Aida, La Bohme and Carmen are the three most-performed operas - often referred to as the ABCs of opera by the cognoscenti. Among these, Giuseppe Verdi's Aida is particularly full of grandeur - featuring a famous triumphal march and often over-the-top pageantry. Live elephants are known to have appeared on stage, as many as 12 at the 1871 Cairo premiere. The audience turnout for Aida usually rivals that of Broadway blockbusters.

The story of the Ethiopian princess Aida, kept as a slave in the court of the pharaohs, is fairly straightforward. Aida is in love with Radams, the commander of the Egyptian army, and he with her. This would have been an ill-fated love at the best of times, but there are two further complications: Radams is set to go into battle with Aida's father, the King Amonasro (the Egyptian court where Aida is held is unaware of the connection). Radams has also caught the very jealous eye of the pharaoh's daughter Amneris. When Radams wins the battle and captures Amonasro, Aida finds herself caught between her heart and loyalty to her country.

Aida entered popular culture early on. Sophia Loren (lip-syncing the great soprano Renata Tebaldi) got her big break in a 1953 film adaptation of the opera. Jean-Louis Grinda, who has directed a new Opera Hong Kong production of Aida - playing in the city this week - seeks to create a cinematic feel. He has placed Verdi's opera in a period film set, bringing the exotic into a more modern context as a reminder of its continuing relevance.

"This option of setting the opera as a film shoot allowed me to respect the libretto and the music of Aida," says Grinda. "The audience will be the first spectators of this imaginary film, just as imaginary as is this love story set in the times of the pharaohs."

Aida, of course, isn't so much about Egypt as the conflict between duties to state, family and the heart. Although the opera was set in a place and time very far away from those in which it was composed, certain elements about the story are universal. Verdi included the elements of triumph, passion, pathos, anguish, ruthlessness, deception, bigotry and redemption in his composition. His protagonists were made to tackle difficult life choices.

The women come out of it better than the men. Radams seems somewhat clueless about the way the world really works and the ruthless Amonasro is all too ready to manipulate those around him. Toward the end Amneris realizes her wickedness and repents, although the repentance comes a bit too late. Aida, who has struggled with the impossible position that fate had put her in, follows her heart to the tomb once freed from her duty.

Opera Hong Kong has come up with an extraordinary cast of sopranos to sing the female lead. The acclaimed Chinese soprano He Hui sang Aida on the opening night, fresh off a run singing the same role at Verona's famous Arena. He Hui now lives in Verona, Italy and has sung Aida more than 150 times. She sang in Hong Kong for only one performance, before flying off to perform her next act at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

However, those who missed listening to He Hui on the opening night should not despair, for American soprano Kristin Lewis, another of the world's most renowned contemporary Aidas, is making her Chinese operatic debut with Opera Hong Kong over the weekend. Lewis returns to China in December to sing in Richard Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder in Beijing.

The part of Amneris is shared by two of opera's reigning mezzo-sopranos, Violeta Urmana and Nina Surguladze. Urmana, who has sung both as a soprano and as a mezzo over a long career, is one of the very few singers ever to have sung both Aida and Amneris. Georgian mezzo Surguladze, who has been referred as the "Penlope Cruz of the opera", also sings in leading houses worldwide, and will reprise Amneris in Bologna after her visit to Hong Kong.

Italian tenor Riccardo Massi will also be making his Hong Kong debut. "I don't yet know the Hong Kong audience but colleagues who have sung there have spoken well of theater and the city so I can't wait to start this new adventure!" said Massi, adding, "I'm going to give my Radams everything I've got!"

(HK Edition 10/13/2017 page1)