BBC: ROH Aida - Vocally erratic, inauspiciously conducted - Nicola Luisotti (ROH debut) - more off than for eccentric staging (McVicar). 27.4.10

Should Baz Luhrmann or James Cameron ever produce Aida, I would recommend that for a conductor to do nothing compelling to get in his way, look no further – Nicola Luisotti. The new David McVicar production of Aida at Convent Garden was to be one with something to offer everybody, with apparently mix of intergalactic space, ancient Chinese warriors strutting across, even perhaps as described, a touch of Addams Family. It all sounded ready to make light of several ancient civilizations – enough that perhaps several very great ones could or should have sputtered out after only just several decades. Sheer outright gore presented onstage was enough to give Royal Opera patrons and emcee pause – for what all sounded very bloodless underneath. For whatever universal meaning to be on display, we were to get an Aida, regardless how cartoon-ish it might look - short of real singers to get in the way - ‘de-saturated not only of its Egyptian-ness, but ultimately also excessively of Verdi.

For early phrases, momentarily, Micaela Carosi – not to be confused with Margharita Carosio - with warm tone, manner of phrasing, sustained interest as Aida. Soon thereafter, the wobbly top distracted, then through ‘Ritorna vincitor’ gulped low notes, and for strain she was under, the tendency to bulge the line and break it up into small pieces. She tended often to bear down for some of the most lyrical passages of Aida that a dramatic soprano will tend to sing softly, but not often Carosi. Hooty tone and flat acuti made ‘O patria mia’ go for naught – loud for final ‘(non piu) ti rivedrai’ – with sobs ending it.

Cabaletta to Nile scene duet with Radames (Marcelo Alvarez) hardly had anything to resemble either heroic sound or persona with which to match; it mattered little that Carosi was no more than just vocally adequate for this. After some good acting, subtly working Aida’s wiles on Radames, “Fuggiam gli ardori inospiti” got so heavily worked, colored variety of ways, one might think that Cathy Berberian could have once taken the part on herself, as example to follow. Much hooty, also flat tone proceeded from there to replace line, anything resembling real poetry to the end of this section of the duet. Not helping matters was Luisotti’s waltz-y, debonair treatment of the refrain therein. Russ McDonald for Opera (British) noted Carosi’s inability to float, make anything buoyant.

The hard swells, lunges, low rent verismo effects, as though Cilea or Giordano badly done, Carosi inculcated into ‘O terra addio’, with Alvarez in lockstep behind her, making it all quite unattractive. Marcelo Alvarez was notably the semi-heroic Radames. He started out at once sounding the eager warrior, dreamer of a Radames. Except for turning choppy toward its conclusion, ‘Celeste Aida’ went reasonably well, with fine sense of wonder and naivete to infuse the lyricism Alvarez can still muster for it. He also began the Tomb Scene well, but before long joined Carosi as equally vulgar partner, for the lyrical to exquisite lines Verdi wrote to close both their parts.

Incisive lines, including Pavarotti-esque shouted ‘Aida’ near opening of the Tomb Scene, frequently started Alvarez pouting in place of sounding heroic. One thinks back to how previous lyrics have handled Radames. With Bergonzi for Karajan and elsewhere, one had (nearly) sufficient heft for more dramatic outbursts, but as comfortably couched within a very well sung lyric line, letting what musical and dramatic imagination do the rest for his not being quite a spinto for it. If ever ran around a class-act Radames, Carlo Bergonzi was it. With Pavarotti, as for Lorin Maazel, we get a mere coasting through it, with hollow middle register, almost no dramatic or musical insight, except for his ability to maintain secure line. Alvarez, close to how Pavarotti handled things, layered on further attempt at histrionics, that at end of the day made one think better had he just settled for singing this.

Once almost all (in place of some, reckoning Pavarotti) poise leaves Radames, the game is up. ‘Pur ti riveggo’ got off to anti-heroic start and to a nearly derailed finish, with ending syllables of pouted ‘Io vi difendo’ - right before weak ‘Fuggire’ - breaking apart into a wild chain of diphthongs. He then lightly clipped, weakly bellowed his way through “Io son disonorato,” helping Amonasro and maestro for brief trio near end of Nile Scene make an indecipherable royal mess of it. Alvarez recovered poise for opening scene of Act Four, but too late and for not long enough lasting a spell.

Ji-Min Park provided the lyric, but wrong-headed, misguided Messenger on this outing. His voice is almost too sweet for even this brief, but important part. It was insightful into the McVicar production however how very wobbly mostly at knees alone this Messenger sounded. As in employ of the Radames of Marcelo Alvarez, it became clear why. Put before an entire Egyptian army made up of such men twelve or thirteen savage Ethiopians (McVicar could have decked out as Japanese sumo wrestlers?) and whole Egyptian army could have en masse capitulated before our very eyes.

The Amneris of Marianne Cornetti, decked out as Queen Elisabeth, in interaction with Alvarez, could have helped explain why. It is hard to recall a more spinster-esque sounding Amneris than this. Other than having Alvarez (or worse, Bocelli) in the part, what claims could have such an Amneris had on Radames? Understandable however the loud yawn with which Cornetti on her ‘Ah! vieni’s opened Act Two, given who sang her beau here - singularly unattractive all the same. Following comfortable feel for conversational, opening lines with Radames and then Aida in the next act, “Trema, vil schiava’ emerged with scoop up to it and uncontrollable beat on its opening F, to come across hardly threatening at all. Declamation at (lower) end of this line was first broken from what issued right before, above it, and lightly barked. Cornetti made almost credible enough case for Act Four duet alone - with Radames.

Amneris’s last plea for mercy to the priests got entirely derailed by closing at-break D that went almost entire whole tone sharp. And then how was Cornetti’s risible notion of a Fata Morgana laugh at them at end of her penultimate line supposed to shake anyone up? More than enough fuss was made over the costuming of Amneris here. Far preferable an Amneris in concert or office attire and much more fuss made over what Verdi wrote, as for instance, where Luisotti undercut Amneris’s pre-trial brief monologue by entirely clipping the rests therein. How Oedipal a situation had arisen here also has to be risible, perhaps along lines of the new McVicar production to show with what ease even ancient cultures could cross boundaries.

Marco Vratogna was the still weaker Amonasro, and in stormiest passage of duet with Aida sounded like taking skip, hop and jump down pathway of hot coals instead of fully enunciated pitches. Several got entirely lost, inaudible during obbligato to ending chorus of the Triumphal Scene. Tone briefly filled out here and there to expand upon still a non legato lyric line. It simply was not enough, except to break Carosi’s well sung reprise of “Ma, tu Re” with a loudly bellowed high F. Giacomo Prestia was hardly stronger as Ramfis, including during trial scene, with very quavery sense of intonation.

If there ever was occasion for ‘flip the ticket’, it was not McCain/Palin, but instead Ramfis and King here in this cast. Luisotti’s cut, heavy clip of between two and not quite three beats of rest before start of the trial of Radames certainly did not help Prestia. Elisabeth Meister, of comparable vocal weight to Carosi, shaped the Priestess’s lines with fine ease and legato line. Finest member of this cast was definitely the oldest –seen before on video of the former, I strongly suspect better Moshinsky production as Ramfis - Robert Lloyd as the King. Though the voice is not what it was seventeen years ago, it still filled the King – part Verdi reckoned less important than High Priest – with fine sense of authority, and still much solid tone, resonance.

Following along behind the rest of what transpired was the conducting of Nicola Luisotti, deft, light for most of the dances during the first two acts and for opening prelude to Act One, and with mostly secure enough ensemble and sound from the Royal Opera orchestra, albeit along with the chorus sounding confused by Luisotti’s flaccid accenting of so much of what Verdi wrote. For at how low voltage so much of this Aida ran on, from Royal Opera forces, it all should have been absolutely together. There was also an incipient tendency to encourage sotto voce reading of numerous lines from his singers, as he has learned from so many years of vocal coaching - late-career von Karajan example as well. It was seldom convincing thirty years ago; with so little character Freni, Carreras, Baltsa gave us, it is definitely not convincing now.

Supposedly tailored, accommodated to singers’ needs, there were a number of places where necessary firm support or underpinning to vocal lines went for naught -.for what diaphanous, then unwittingly shallow sonority Luisotti had in mind. Tempos were frequently mildly slow, but more than that being the case, inner vitality to even volatile accompaniment went for naught. Take for instance the Allegro giusto marking for surging accompaniment to ‘I sacri Numi’ during ‘Ritorna vincitor’ or ascending, descending viola, cello lines in unison under ‘Del Nilo I cupi vortici’ right before ‘O patria mia’. Take also the shallow gilding of brass chords underneath the King in recitative directly leading into opening scene ‘Sul del Nilo’ chorus and flat-line accompaniment to the Temple Scene duet soon thereafter. In effect, so much fuss tepidly left several members of Luisotti’s cast, at one point or another, regardless where, high and dry - nothing any of this cast could afford less than that. Same held true for Luisotti’s flaccid support for Verdi’s choral writing - as an aside his Ketelbey feel for the ‘Immenso Phtha’ business during the Tomb Scene.

Had Verdi been able to write Aida as neatly couched array of diaphanous colors, textures, it might have suited Luisotti, even late-career Karajan just fine. Harp for opening of the Temple Scene sounded tinny enough to have been mistaken for a ukulele - to accompany priestesses imported from plantation off the Mississippi. Boosted accelerandi to close excitable passages came across - instead of forceful - light, cheaply scherzo-esque. Such exemplified here close of both ‘Sul del Nilo’ chorus and Act Three. This turned out indeed a most inauspicious conducting debut for Convent Garden.

Much abetted lunge into ‘O terra addio’ from both protagonists showed wholesome confidence of the afterlife to follow. Breaking into it was, most likely unintentional, what one could construe as someone on stage having kicked over something. And yet the singing carried on. For realistic fear of meeting one composer on the other side, what then should be their, even our own take on approaching what life there is for the hereafter?

MET: A special helping of broken chinoiserie - Hui He in slipshod re-run of Verdi's Aida 03.04.10 An aside on PBS re-airing of fall Turandot.

It is with the second heaviest Verdi role with which Hui He of Xi’an, China, graduate of Shanghai Conservatory made her Met and Met broadcast debut. She got heard as Tosca in a concert (semi-staged) performance, broadcast with the New York Philharmonic, approximately a year ago, Lorin Maazel conducting.

The part of Aida is versatile in its demands - elusive this way. Hui He made this much clear. It was just partly a case of nerves that obstructed her being able to start well lyrically, for which she placed back too far - to be careful. It thus made for cloudy tone production from her entrance on stage through end of trio with Amneris and Radames. She gained slightly more confidence for the large ensemble and opening of ‘Ritorna, vincitor’ to follow; her tone better opened out and more of a character began to emerge. Persistent pitch problems then began to compromise line; she lacked quite the control to scale voice down where, such as to start “L’inana parola’, the line is marked pianissimo.

There is attractive color here, for instance a smoky colored lower register, but pitch problems at the break and above killed her first go at ‘Numi, pieta’, that fortunately she repeated much better to end Act Two, Scene One. Gentle imploring of Amneris for news of Radames conveyed fine intimacy as same music taken more slowly during ‘Ritorna vincitor’ had in her previous scene. She then however opted for thickening her sound a little much, making intonation suffer once more, this time for her well felt despondent entreaties for mercy to a threatening rival ('Ah! pieta ti prenda').

‘O patria mia’, starting off the Nile Scene, revealed the effect of some wear and tear of singing Aida on essentially a lyric instrument. The right lyrical impetus was present, and feeling for emotions of the character, but for sake of maintaining control through some of the long cantilena in this aria, tone began to turn whitish under pressure and the high C just about misfired completely. Hui He then managed to quickly regain poise for by and large a quite successful Nile duet with Amonasro, with especially some fully spun out lines to close it, that she then made quite affecting. Through ‘Pur ti riveggo’ with Radames, she also revealed well toughness of the slave girl, alongside the vulnerability. Intonation again became for a few phrases very hit-and-miss for Hui He as the second big duet to include her required so much scaling down of the voice. Most revealing of having succumbed to effect of having had run across some questionable training was the reach-from-behind approach to ‘O, terra, addio’ which broke apart the line and again killed intonation, whereas she had started the Tomb Scene well.

Slight glibness apart, including through ‘L’inno nostro di morte’ in this final scene, a real character as Aida started to emerge, in such quasi-heroic attempt at it, but with so much faulty technique to just simply got excessively in the way. Not encumbered by such heavy demands, here is a lovely instrument, but, one would hope, not one to be quickly ruined soon by plethora of Tosca’s, Aidas, Amelia’s, etc. It would be good to report here that, from veterans of Met and other big house Aida’s, there might be some example for Hui He to follow Saturday. However, all to encounter here were only faint to mediocre reminders of what Aida, singing it, is about.

Salvatore Licitra was the Radames, appearing all eager, naïve, ambitious, guileless, stupid as any Radames should for ‘Se guerrier io fossi.’ All this was fine and well, just as long as Lictira did not have to reach much for the break or anything above it. What hint of anything like heroism that Radames should convey, such as from for instance a Bergonzi, fell seriously by the wayside. Licitra did manage to plan here and conserve energy better than he did last year in Munich with Gatti, singing Radames again, but still several high notes emerged as raw, even here. Clipping of ‘Nel fiero anelito’, inelegant lunging for long sustained F’s in Celesta Aida’ and poutish behavior for cabaletta to the Nile scene duet ultimately contributed to one anti-heroic Radames indeed.

In fact, one would have hoped that the priests, others in charge, once betrayal of the Egyptian forces has occurred, might have paused to consider how perhaps little of a factor Radames might have been in securing victory for which he has just been lauded. Once having done so, it might have been easy to release Radames as unworthy to the cause from the get-go to the Ethiopians to join his Aida in smelling i freschi valli of new jungle home down south. We could have then had a happy ending and no Act Four.

Dolora Zajick, for what seems the umpteen hundredth time - wear and tear on her voice to show for it - was the Amneris. She joined Licitra in giving, even solidifying well the following impression of lets say ninety minutes before curtain, loud stretch and yawn, ‘time to get derriere down to Lincoln Center, put on the Egyptian, and give it all once more what they came for..’ In other words, for the most part, other than to phone Amneris in, the cause was lost. ‘Hmm - how shall we nuance ‘Ah, vieni’ today? Let’s perhaps place each succeeding one even still a little further back from previous one this time.’ How imaginative! What extra gilding Zajick gave them did however succeed in derailing intonation. Zajick comfortably coasted through the ‘Trema, vil schiava’s’ of Act Two, Scene One, then after nice pause for extra half a second from Armiliato, indulged us of her chest voice on ‘Del tuo destino’, that starts and remains comfortably lower.

Marco Armiliato gave Zajick a fairly breezy tempo for cabaletta in the Judgment scene, instead of abetting her clipping it, such as happened earlier here in Houston. The forza for it still got compromised quite a bit. For arioso to precede trial of Radames, Zajick varied between good garden variety verismo and giving the princess’s special voicing of desperation for hope a few shimmers of real insight. There is still indeed an Amneris here, even quite the voice for it, though with chest register more separate from the rest than before, and one looking as though en route to shadow of her former glorious self.

Carlo Colombara made the lyrically achieved Ramfis, achieving proper gravitas and menace for some pages - temple scene with Radames for instance - and compromised, reach-from-above intonation for the rest of it. The profile for what once has been a very fine voice for the part is still there, but some edges now begin to show. Invocations of Radames’s name eventually went completely sharp. Stefan Kocan played the somewhat nasal, Slavic toned King of Egypt quite firmly, but also with minor intonation problems.

Carlo Guelfi energetically fletcherized a bit to put forth a fully rounded Amonasro across the footlights. Other than for several key lines, for instance at the end of the Nile duet with Aida, top notes were unsteady and sense of legato patchy at best. Clearly what continues mostly a character-baritone profile of the embattled and enslaved Ethiopian king emerged here. My expectations for Guelfi were lowest of all, but in context of this cast, he hardly did poorly at all. All three lowest male voices in this cast sounded best in negotiating exchange of recitative toward end of the Triumphal Scene, following Guelfi’s unwritten doubling of Hui He on all instead of part of her long second phrase to repeat what Amonasro just had in full to himself for ‘Ma, tu Re.’ He sounded, non legato, two dynamic levels louder than she did.

More heroic sounding than anybody else in the cast was the Messenger of Diego Torres, perhaps the one unqualified success here. Could he have been a double for Licitra? What could have things been like, had he been able to fill in? The Priestess (Elisabeth DeShong) however was a case, all the way around, of blatant disregard. Nobody, from the podium to backstage showed any evidence of care for how the music is marked, in terms of dynamics, balances, placement, or anything else. DeShong blasted her way through this at an unyielding fortissimo – not making enviable at all where the new Chinese soprano may have stood within grand scheme of things.

After cancellation of Paolo Cargnani just slightly within one week of this run, came on Marco Armiliato to conduct this instead. Heavily misplaced accents in segue off the Judgment Scene duet for one revealed that, for Armiliato, there was nothing other than perhaps cosmetic that needed fixing since Gatti, the far more glorified (and more willful) routiniere who conducted this last fall.

The affectation, mannerisms with Armliato up there in Gatti’s place was at times exactly the same, as I have heard in a Munich Aida and more painfully the La Scala Don Carlo. The Met chorus most often sounded thin and unfocused. Strings were a bit ragged, even for prelude to Act One and mezzo-forte for what should be the magical opening of the Nile scene. Many phrase endings were loud and crude, often to a truly unwarranted extent, i.e. toward end of ‘Ma, tu Re’ during the Triumphal Scene for stretto right before closing phrase. This was shouted to extent that brief line of chord progression therein could have been mistaken for writing out of Utrenja or Moses und Aaron instead.

Obsequious yielding to his singers on stage, when in violation of Verdi’s rhythms, came across highly insipid. Dance episodes during the first two acts were clunky - the dance of the priestesses flat-footed and loud. Amneris’s slaves, even as looking forward to a few special privileges in lieu of the day being prep for her nuptials with Radames, sounded tired and disengaged – with loud, clunky harp to accompany them. What the Met orchestra and chorus has been able to offer before in terms of refinement under Levine and others seemed to have exited for left field entirely. The grandeur of such an occasion, to see Aida at the Met, with chorus sounding at times so thin, went almost entirely missing. Ira Siff’s comparative evaluation of this cast - for it to have been just as good for us in our own day as Toscanini’s of the 1908-09 season (Destinn, Louise Homer, Caruso) had been for that time, Verdi’s Aida notwithstanding - hit a new low.

Desecration from earlier this Met season of again a true masterpiece - what has so often now been left bowdlerized, with still the Toscanini butchered Alfano ending to it, was on display on PBS this evening. When bare-chested Pu-Tin-Pao came on stage, in the stage directions, for the Liu, I thought he could have been headed for either the somewhat raw sounding Turandot (Maria Guleghina) or Calaf (Marcello Giordani) instead, for what had happened to the shape of so many of Puccini’s phrases, pitch, etc. Andris Nelsons (Met debut), with deft touch for some of Puccini’s sonorities, made something close to muzak of the rest. - in place of ability for the modernism of Puccini’s score to make it to the fore. After shaky ensemble for passacaglia to flaccidly end Act One, one then picked up real garden variety Tommy Dorsey waltz of just about the entire Riddle Scene to end Act Two.

In Berlioz’s day, should this Turandot have occurred in Beijing then, someone would have had to step in to save even Nelsons, lest he not have been able to leave Tian’anmen with ears and nose intact after likely encounter with Pu-Tin Pao himself Otherwise, what would we be able to make today of what Berlioz wrote on the subject of penalties for desecrators? The Liu (Marina Poplavaskaya) practically or artistically emerged the victor of the day, even with her own moments of questionable intonation. Pu-Tin-Pao still perhaps had score to settle with her - for her execrable Elisabetta in Don Carlo weeks earlier in London.

The Zeffirelli, with the three ministers doing ‘this is what we do to look Chinese for the tourists’ act, looked as silly as any production of his has ever looked, all the excessive dancing around and posing with fans hardly less. Nelsons took the same bad cut to the ministers’ scene opening Act Two as usually taken. No gravitas was able to be found for anything, least of all either the tone of Samuel Ramey or Charles Anthony as senior figures on stage, or as to what Puccini’s final opera could have meant. It would have hardly mattered if the highly relevant Berio finale of today could have been performed. With both the staging and Nelson’s mix of chartreuse into Puccini’s sonorities, even for Puccini composed like he did – the cause would have most likely been lost anyway. What Turandot might offer in terms of grandeur got compromised by road-show quality work (including in number on stage) from the Met chorus.

Bavarian St Opera Aida: a la Gatti step - Egyptians, Verdi in flats

Barbara Frittoli was originally to have sung in this production of Verdi’s Aida, but whether it was the heaviness of the title role for a lyric, the lack of any clear beat to happen from the podium, or confusion surrounding the staging (by Christof Nel) in question that led her to backing out may still remain an open question. On paper then, that is still including Frittoli, this appeared to be a somewhat promising outing with Verdi’s Aida, on terms of its three principal singers. Lyric bass Giacomo Prestia has had some success before with Ramfis at other houses too.

Kristin Lewis, soprano from Little Rock, Arkansas, with certainly some attractive qualities, took Frittoli's place. There is a warm, thick molasses to the sound here that is quite attractive and should continue to help her find work in more lyric repertoire than the title role of Aida. I certainly hope she has not added Tosca or Amelia in Ballo to her repertoire as of yet. Lewis is said to have a degree of acting ability that apparently, according to one other writer who has written in, said that the rest of this cast lacked. Lewis’s first entrance, in trio with Amneris and Radames, a good ways already before becoming necessary for a lyric, involved quite a degree of pushing the voice - evident too during “Su del Nilo" several minutes later how flat she could become above the staff.

Most worrisome, for singer I estimate to be in her late twenties, was the pushing down on not only low notes to reach them, but also doing so on pitches around the break. The perils of doing so, for sake of the longevity of a career just starting out especially, should be blatantly obvious by now. She certainly won some sympathy for the part, but also had to stick at times to coasting through things, glib expression should any going nearby get rough. “O patria mia” certainly suited Lewis better than did “Ritorna vincitor,” but high C and high A at the end, though in tune, were unsupported. From what clip of this Aida I have seen, there are certainly some fine dramatic and musical instincts here that Lewis presents - all threatened however by taking on an assignment that is too big for her voice and too demanding of more secure technique.

Ekaterina Gubanova made overall a lyric Amneris, fairly even across her range, and with the expected Slavic coloring along with the rest. She still effectively managed to convey some of the imperious manner with which Amneris should carry herself, and if not rising to the most vocally resplendent tragic heights of inspiration during the Judgment scene, certainly did not eschew musical and dramatic involvement. Through several of the most dramatic moments in the part, she relied heavily upon Gatti to provide the clipping of note values she might have needed to keep lines she was singing sustainable, including her threatening lines to Aida during first scene of Act Two. While on that, her “Vieni, vieni, amor mio”’s starting Act Two became curiously stuck, tremulous around the break – a needed fix for which Gatti did not show much ability to come to her rescue.

Salvatore Licitra displayed the lyricism for Radames, along with some of the nobility, plus about all the guilelessness, romantic ardor, naivete, stupidity true of Radames as well. “Celeste Aida” had good sustained line, but through which Licitra coasted his way, toward being able to make some still strained B-Flats; at the temple of Phtah, he managed to go sharp several times in his duet with Prestia. Good characterization persisted through the Nile scene, but Licitra could not hide bench-pressing he started engaging in even for the slower, more lyrical part of Nile duet with Aida. Lewis, having to go about its cabaletta in ‘hail Mary’ fashion, provided suitable distraction unfortunately for what trouble Licitra had here as well. The fatigue for what is really not a very long evening fully set in for Licitra by the Tomb Scene – in which past his sensitive opening phrases to it, he emitted some raw sounds. It has been said that this guy can hardly act his way out of a paper bag. One does not evaluate a Radames so much on that as being able to sing the part - one that sits quite often uncomfortably in the middle of the voice. One need only look back to Carlo Bergonzi, however, to know how well it can be done.

Christian Van Horn, apart from several doubtful low notes, provided a very sturdy, stalwart King, with pleasing dark timbre to voice that hopefully will not (too soon) encounter being forced onto assignments too heavy.. Angela Brewer, with voice placed too forward, was found to slough off phrase endings and unsteady as the Priestess. Kenneth Roberson (Messenger) was fine, except for being rushed off his lines by Gatti.

Audibly painful high F’s, far placed back wobbly unsteady tone characterized most of all the Amonasro during the Triumphal Scene, that for which no amount of incisiveness from Gatti was able to compensate during “Quest’assissi” - starting point for enslaved foreign monarch. Marco Vratogna then had us encounter overt touch of sprechstimme for the entirety of one phrase during “Ma tu, re.” The slightly long held acuti that start off lines in the violent part of his Nile duet with Aida indicated possible membership in the Fiorenza Cedolins school for singing acuti a whole tone lower than pitch - possibly learned from last year’s Don Carlo at La Scala – should real pitch not be attainable. Both singers involved here, as assisted the best they could by Gatti, coasted through the Nile scene duet with only just as much as they were able to give it.

Giacomo Prestia started Ramfis well, with writing lyrical enough to handle, but on “Noi t’invochiam” during the temple scene, a repeated pitch on low B-flat for several measures changed four or five times over span of three measures. It must be, given how slithery this Ramfis was – including on calling out Radames’s name during the Judgment scene - that here perhaps in this staging as having been raised in the backwoods of Tennessee as priest (or minister) who has spent a little too much time at his contribution to the snake-handling division of his vocation for attaining top of the ladder. The worried tone that this Ramfis developed for his third calling out for Radames to respond to his indictment seemed to indicate that should there be present defense counsel among priests, he must have fallen asleep on the job. We can leave it to Calixto Bieito or Peter Konwitschny as to how to find more clever way to change the plot to Act Four.

As for Gatti, this Aida was not quite the disaster which Don Carlo at La Scala had been. That can be taken as pretty much a given. Aida is forty-five minutes shorter or so than the four-act Don Carlo - with duet between Carlo and Phillip that Gatti restored for it during the prison scene. That is the good news. However, this was more not so much an interpretation of Aida as a marginalization of Verdi’s score and of its most distinctive tendencies found therein. Tempo relationships were frequently questionable, as for anything to make dramatically or musically cumulative sense. Gatti's ability to draw some tinta out of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester was admirable, except for streamlining some of it away and thus leaving so much relatively undefined.

The Triumphal scene benefited by not being overstated, certainly; Gatti shaped the difficult ‘Ma, tu Re’, to have included such an unsteady Amonasro, circumspectly. Accenting however in the framing choruses for the big scene was found to often go awry and at times in what made accents sound as though they would do so at just about always the most awkward times too - with such a casual step through it all as well. Contours to Gatti’s work for the second half of Aida sounded more secure than first half. Partly due however to not having sufficient voices, the Nile Scene went by as aone of the most anticlimactic renditions of it I have yet heard. As for the dances in Aida, rhythmic shape was slightly lacking for Priestesses at the temple, pacing casual for the Moorish slaves in Amneris’s boudoir. Following where there was no acoustical spacing for whatever reason between trumpet led sections of the triumphal march came uneven leadership overall of the ballet, with vulgar jerking about of first F Minor episode therein.

Choral work overall veered between acceptable to mediocre, sounding ‘glee club’ to start the Triumphal Scene. One issue at stake was the uneven, flaccid beat the chorus would get quite frequently from the podium, and also their awkward placement on the stage - with violated sounding priestesses during temple scene for being placed too forward.

On program I do not find led very well, concerning issues that affect our country and politics - (ABC) This Week with Stephy - I learned a new word that could indeed become quite useful at times, if used sparingly. The topic at hand was ‘breakdown in discipline’ (quoth Ed Gillespie) during Hillary Clinton’s visit to the Congo last week – to what is - pause for breath here, i.e. how evil - ‘a male-dominated world’ over there. Well, yes, with frequent rape, genital mutilizations, other forms of gender violence, it sure must be bad, as Donna Brazile mentioned. All this was during an episode she as pure aside admittedly quoted Ronald Reagan - trumpeting a very accomplished Hillary Clinton’s prerogative to show a little emotion.

First of all, what verb should be conjugated here? I do not know, but the new word found above, can it be found in an Ebonics dictionary? I just wonder how legitimate I may be to attempt using this word myself. Somehow it morphs together two verbs with which we are all familiar – ‘to utilize’ and ‘to mutilate.’

Why am I so off topic here? Is it some knee-jerk reaction I have to watching priests on stage for little I have seen of this each throwing one among many strapping youth head first over their shoulders – I certainly should hope not resulting in any type(s) of mutilization. I wonder too about the white slaves in this production – as Aida Americana - that from the appearance of things, does seem to have at least a few clever ideas. As these get sorted out and any unsalvageable be found among new breed of indentured, do they then have to be submitted before the ‘death panels’ that Sarah Palin has told us exist now, supervised from Washington DC?

How about instead utilizing the new word to apply to an insecure podium for partly undue accommodation that results in mutilating or in effect mutlilizating Verdi’s rhythms? It happened frequently here, and (supposedly) for benefit of more than just Miss Lewis. Gubanova needed help in the cabaletta to the Judgment scene duet with Radames (as did Dolora Zajick, Gatti’s Eboli last year in Don Carlo – also when she sang Amneris here last time in Houston with Carlo Rizzi). ‘Ritorna vincitor’ got all kinds of help as well – most notably “Numi, pieta” close to waltz time - in three-four.

Gatti himself hardly ever needed any excuse as to what a specific singer on stage might need at any given time. I just naively happened to think I was tuning in to Bavarian State Opera of Munich instead of second cast from New York City Opera or at Houston Grand Opera, but after all if the inherent right is to show a little emotion – whether in diplomacy on world or on world operatic stage, then ‘so be it.’ At least, to answer someone else who has written in, it has to have been more comfy to do so in flats instead of heels. That at least Ms. Brazile would know.