Michael Mayer’s Faux-Archaeologists Can’t Rescue His Entombed ‘Aida’ at the Met

Struggling to understand what I’d just witnessed at the Metropolitan Opera on New Year’s Eve, I strode onto Lincoln Center Plaza in a torrential downpour and suddenly thought of the Gypsy revival that recently opened twenty blocks to the south. Perhaps because the director of the evening’s new production of Aida is Michael Mayer, the Tony Award-winning Broadway regisseur, I imagined that when offered the job of producing Verdi’s perennial masterpiece, he thought of Gypsy’s second-act show-stopper, “You Gotta Get a Gimmick.”

How else can one explain his mystifying concept of framing an engrossing opera of love, war and death in ancient Egypt with the explorations of a silent band of early 20th-century archaeologists? During Verdi’s prelude, a harnessed Indiana Jones-lookalike descended in a pool of light to the stage floor and discovered a dagger (remember that dagger!) and marveled at the hieroglyphics he saw. After Ramfis and Radamès entered, the lead explorer vanished. From then on, with one important exception, he and his fellow archaeologists became so peripheral to the action that, for long stretches, you forgot about them completely.

Perhaps their inclusion was Mayer’s weak attempt to make his otherwise utterly traditional, entirely conventional Aida more relevant by attaching itself to opera’s recent struggle with its long fetishization of “exotic” cultures. Only once do his actors enter directly into the opera’s action. During the monumental Triumphal Scene, the “modern” figures parade through the spectacle bearing a wide array of gold statues, the spoils of their expedition. After intermission, they receded again into the background, only occasionally resurfacing to observe the opera’s riveting action, a conceit that only alienated us from the opera’s principals. The observers’ most off-putting inaction occurred in the opera’s tragic final moments when Indiana and his female colleague watched dispassionately as Aida and Radamès succumbed in the tomb and the grieving Amneris committed hara-kiri, presumably with the very dagger he had clutched in the opera’s first minutes.

Mayer’s long-postponed production replaces Sonja Frisell’s much-loved 1988 vision, whose passing was mourned with much regret. Its recent revivals more than thirty years after its premiere were plagued by casts appearing to have had little guidance beyond rudimentary blocking. Hopes that Mayer would provide more detailed direction were quickly dashed as his singers looked as if they were left largely to their own devices, falling back on clichéd stock gestures addressed to the Grand Tier rather than to their colleagues and nearly always from the very front of the stage.

The lack of guidance was most noticeable in Angel Blue’s vulnerable Aida, a relatively new role for her. The sympathetic soprano can be a persuasive actress when given strong direction, as in Porgy and Bess, but here her Aida was far too modest and unassertive, offering few glimpses of a proud Ethiopian princess suffering under Egyptian domination. Happily, she sounded in refulgent voice, sending gleaming high notes into the Met’s vast space. If her middle and chest registers didn’t bloom as excitingly, she showed a firm grasp of her role’s fierce demands.

Perhaps as the run continues into the spring, Blue will bring more specificity and bite to her words, mirroring those of her father. Amonasro, the captured king, was fiercely embodied by Quinn Kelsey, whose entrance late in the second act briefly shocked the placid proceedings into vivid life. He seethed with anger, darkening his vibrant high baritone and briefly sparked Blue to greater urgency in their anxious, wrenching duet, which proved the most gripping sequence of the evening.

The wisdom of Piotr Beczala’s taking on the punishing dramatic role of Radamès was hotly debated before the opening, but those reservations weren’t answered as the elegant, earnest tenor was sick for the opening and probably shouldn’t have performed at all. The Met’s general manager Peter Gelb made an announcement about his illness and thanked him for continuing, but many in the audience may not have been as grateful. He continued to crack, transpose notes down an octave or just omit them entirely, which inevitably nonplussed his partners and dampened the music’s effect.

Beczala must be under an unlucky New Year’s Eve star as he withdrew from 2023’s Carmen premiere and then missed several further performances. The tenor, who turned 58 on December 28, had been in fine voice for his Carnegie Hall recital earlier in December, so his disastrous Radamès mustn’t be perceived as a sign of decline. Why he was encouraged to begin—and then continue—remains a troubling mystery, particularly in front of a snazzily dressed audience paying top dollar for a less-than-gala premiere.

As Ramfis, Dmitry Belosselskiy too sounded ill, his bass muffled and unassertive. Perhaps due to Belosselskiy’s indisposition, Morris Robinson, who will take over the role of Ramfis later in the season, dominated his scenes as the King of Egypt rarely does. While Yongzhao Yu made little of the Messenger’s urgent narrative, Amanda Batista brought a brightly promising soprano to the role of the offstage Priestess.

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After her disappointing debut last season as a miscast Preziosilla in the new La Forza del Destino, Romanian mezzo-soprano Judit Kutasi returned to the Met as an extravagantly melodramatic Amneris, the scorned Princess of Egypt. Her outsized performance won cheers from some for its no-holds-barred flamboyance, particularly in contrast with the introverted Blue and the struggling Beczala. Her singing, however, was wildly unpredictable. Sometimes high notes rang out clearly and on pitch—more often, they inched worryingly sharp. Her occluded middle often wobbled, and the chest notes could sound more like speech than singing.

Given Beczala’s precarious condition, Yannick Nézet-Séguin led an unusually cautious Aida, though many passages revealed a fleet, entrancingly transparent view of the score. His musicians responded to him with a polished sheen. The several dance sequences once again brought out a delicately lively side of the conductor; however, Oleg Glushkov’s campy ballet for twenty lithe bare-chested and -legged undulating men should be repurposed for the next edition of Broadway Bares. Donald Palumbo returned from retirement to prepare the chorus for this new production, and his male contingent was in particularly thrilling form.

Given the bland predictability of Mayer’s production, the Met might just as well kept its venerable Frisell version, which showcased Gianni Quaranto’s massively convincing sets. But Christine Jones’s new sets, abetted by 59 Production’s elegant and colorful projections, looked wonderfully evocative, as did Susan Hilferty’s striking costumes. The physical production will serve the company well, but the unnecessary archaeologists will surely wear out their welcome as quickly as Alfredo’s intrusive mute sister did in Mayer’s “Disney” Traviata.

The big question remains as to why Mayer was asked back to direct one of the Met’s most popular works when his two previous Verdi productions—the notorious 1950s Las Vegas Rigoletto (which has already been dumped for Bartlett Sher’s even less successful Weimar mess) and the Traviata eyesore—have been consistently reviled. One hopes cast changes happening later this season will help us love the opera while tolerating another Gelb misfire: this cast continues through the HD on January 25. Christina Nilsson will later debut as Aida, and the eagerly anticipated returns of Elina Garanca and Amartuvshin Enkhbat for Amneris and Amonasro are scheduled for late April.