Verdi - Aida
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DVD details
Actor: Adina Aaron, Kate Aldrich, Massimiliano Stefanelli, Paolo Pecchioli, Scott PiperDVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); Italian (Subtitled); German (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Classical, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 142 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-11-21
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Tdk DVD Video
DVD Reviews of Verdi - Aida
DVD Review: A magnificent achievement
Summary: 5 Stars
This tremendous Zeffirelli production of Aida from the Busseto Theater is the only film of this opera I think I will watch over and over again. Zeffirelli's touch of glamor is there but it's so wonderfully executed on a small scale that it puts to bed all the old nasty chestnut criticisms opera taste-arbiters have launched at `Frego' over the years; overblown, Hollywood, Technicolor, DeMille, all are words that Zeffirelli has had hurled at his head like rotten tomatoes by the Regietheater crowd and other self-absorbed egomaniacs. I call it jealousy, and Zeffirelli has really trumped all those enfants-terrible this time with a stunning, imaginative and pragmatic Aida production, designed and directed by him. His sets are extremely beautiful and subtle, his direction masterful.
Act I begins with a very fine rendition of Celeste Aida by Scott Piper. He looks like an Egyptian prince and he doesn't bellow or ham it up. The voice is big enough for the small Busseto theater but it might not be a role for him at The Met, yet. You can discern Carlo Bergonzi's coaching of his performance. Legato, piano, pianissimo, ardent and youthful all accurately describe Piper's performance, like Bergonzi in his young prime. He is currently singing roles like Don José and Pinkerton so we may not have to wait too much longer for his arrival at The Met or Lyric Opera.
Kate Aldrich is a beautiful Gloria Swanson look-a-like who also happens to have a powerful, rich mezzo-soprano voice. Her Amneris is a young girl, sexually awakened and acutely receptive to sudden changes in the atmosphere, as when she spots Radames ogling Aida. Her acting is very subtle and she benefits from the small, close-up stage as her facial expressions are apt and myriad in variety. Aldrich has gone from strength to strength in her career and is singing Strauss and Verdi all over the place these days. She is perhaps the most effective Amneris I've seen on stage, and she's well up there in terms of vocal performance in a role that is usually roared out by stentorian mezzo-sopranos. Aldrich is powerful without being at all bombastic, though I suspect she's capable of flaking the plaster off the putti in the largest opera house.
Adina Aaron is one of Zeffirelli's mystical creations. Where did he find this woman who was, as evidenced in her performance, born to sing Aida. It isn't just because she's a beautiful African-American soprano, she is a tremendous actress and possesses a luscious, imminently listenable lirico-spinto soprano. She sings beautifully a role we are used to hearing by large-voiced, overdressed divas with lots of upper body strength, who can't act for beans but can bellow and swoon like there's no tomorrow. Ms. Aaron's performance is the uncanny embodiment of Aida. She looks like an Ethiopian slave, bare-footed and wearing simple Sari-like costumes and scarves. There are recordings and films of greater sopranos in this role, but not many.
For instance, Aaron's performance of Ritorna vincitor! is deeply moving and a rich slice of live theater I have never experienced so vividly in any other video of any opera. There is nothing fake or grand-gesture about this production on the whole and Ms Aaron conveys the deepest connection with her personification of this well-trodden role. Unforgettable.
Aaron is currently singing some of the heavier Verdi roles in smaller European houses, roles like Aida and Leonora in Il trovatore and Elisabetta di Valois.
Act I of Aida ends with the ceremony in the Temple of Vulcan in Memphis. This is one of those scenes that are usually so bloated with extras, corps de ballet and obfuscated by clouds of dry ice you can't really figure out, or care, what, exactly these priests and priestesses are trying to invoke. It's usually all razzle dazzle mystic hokum. In this production the solemnity of the invocation is real and moving. The chorus of priests is seated, no choristers are allowed to over-emote or attempt to act as they do at The Met (famous hams), and enunciates the words like I've never heard them before, pianissimo!, unheard of in Aida, in the theater anyway. Luc Buoy's choreography for the five priestesses is beautiful and evocative, glorified by Anna Anni's sublime and historically accurate costumes. Vinicio Cheli's lighting is of the highest order of imaginative beauty and aptness. Never too dark, or murky, and bright and golden when it needs to be.
I have to mention the opening of Act 3, before the Temple of Isis. I got the sense that Verdi must have had a whale of a time composing this scene and the subsequent O Patria mia. The music he composed for Aida is really astonishing.
I heard the birth noises of Sibelius in Act 3 and other surprising revelations in this performance. We've gotten so used to it as performed by The Met and Covent Garden and everywhere else as simply cirque du soleil bombast and Wagnerian singers trying to trill and toss off rippling grace notes when it is clearly beyond them.
In Act 3 scene 1 Kate Aldrich becomes incandescent. Her voice in this mysterious scene is quiet, rich and potent, like few of those other roaring mezzos can accomplish after screaming through the end of Act 2. Aldrich moves like a trained dancer, veiled in moonlight white and moving like an egret, elegantly in a temple pool. It's very beautiful to behold. This magical scene is followed by just about the most moving performance of O Patria Mia I've ever heard. Adina Aaron's performance of this over-exposed but great aria packs quite an emotional wallop. This singer has the goods and she does not suffer, at all, in comparison to any of the great voices who have sung Aida.
Scott Piper turns out to be a great Radames. The Love Duet at the end of Act 3 is magnificently done by he and Aaron.
Kate Aldrich surpasses herself in her big scene in Act 4, scene 1, confronting Radames and post verdict of Traditor!
She has transformed herself into a black sequined gown femme fatal. Her closing lines of the opera are powerful and the lighting is sensational for the final tableau.
The supporting roles are very well done. Giuseppe Garra is especially impressive as Amonasro.
These young singers are beautifully directed by Zeffirelli, and coached by Carlo Bergonzi, and can act and are very attractive to look at. These assets are an unbeatable recipe for something unique, and Zeffirelli's intimate (but grand at the same time) production of Aida soars to the top of the filmed Aida pile.
Massimiliano Stefanelli's conducting is so good as to draw no undue attention to itself other than from time to time causing me to notice how beautifully his small orchestra is playing and how right the whole thing sounds in his hands. The camerawork is so excellent I didn't even notice it. The sound is great, and the picture beautifully clear.
TDKs presentation is good, a good quality plastic folding sleeve, very thin with 2 dvds, but there is nothing but barebones information. There is an interesting feature on the making of this film. There are optional subtitles in English and the translation is beautifully done, nothing risible or nonsensical.
The only other Aida film I have payed money to own is the Robert Wilson production from Brussels in 2005, conducted by Kazushi Ono. I have yet to finish Act 1 and I've owned that dvd for almost a year. It is interesting and lovely to behold but....BORING, with absolutely no human emotional connection at all. And the cast is not nearly as involved or involving as they were in Busseto in 2001.
This Aida here ... is The One, like Muti's Falstaff also from the Teatro Verdi in Busseto, Italy. I hope these dvd producers of opera videos continue to give us more superlative productions from this splendid venue.
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