The process is quite unusual for the Salzburg Festival: in 2017, the Iranian photographer and filmmaker Shirin Neshat staged Verdi’s “Aida” here. It was her first job as an opera director, and it didn’t have very much to do with directing operas. What I remember is the impression of an elaborate concert event. Neshat has now returned to revise her previous work. In fact, she now penetrates to the very core of her artistic work, incorporating her own video works, films and compelling portraits of exquisite image quality. However, she still has no idea about leadership.
Supposedly she wanted to work a lot with video as early as 2017, but the resistance of the conductor Riccardo Muti prevented this. That’s what they say. Sounds logical, because now, before the music starts, strangely cloaked figures pass by the edge of the stage in the Großer Festspielhaus (Ku Klux Klan? Good Friday in Spain? Black Christmas trees?). They carry a bowl of incense and, as a menacing portent, will keep stopping by the performance. In addition, the music keeps stopping between the scenes, and you see gritty portraits of people, and you can hear a chirping whisper. That looks good, but there’s nothing more than a cheap indication that Neshat wants to appeal to everyone.
Amneris (Ève-Maud Hubeaux) and the priests (on video).
(Photo: Ruth Walz/Salzburg Festival)
The films, mostly black and white, which can be seen during the performance and are borrowed from Neshat’s older works (“Passage”, “Rapture”) are more meaningful. Women cloaked in black, sometimes as a self-confident group, sometimes like mourners torn in pain, scenes on a citadel with the same women and men in white shirts and black pants, who look like something out of a Camus film. Sea, beach, desert, a small boat with women drifting helplessly out to sea. The images have a lot of atmosphere, they sometimes even create a compelling association space for what is happening on stage, but ultimately the impression remains that one is watching a video installation in which a few real people happen to be standing around. “Aida” is also about a war between Egypt and Ethiopia; The fact that a war is currently raging on the fringes of Europe can only be sensed as a threatening aura of oppression and violence. Shirin Neshat’s revision is never intended to be updated. And is still heartily booed.
Exquisite aesthetics isn’t everything in opera. The stage design by Christian Schmidt, a huge cube that can be opened and divided in two, is still impressive, and it can now be used as a projection screen. But little happens around it or in it. Choral masses are arranged in lavishly designed costumes that look like a luxury variant of the Oberammergau Passion Play, clergymen of all kinds who, at least this is noticeable, hold the power in their hands. The military here is just a tool of the religious regime, Radamès is not a hero but a little warrior who has to do what he is told. Piotr Beczala makes his role debut in the role, he seems strained, but in the end he is sovereign, he is not allowed to play love, he hardly comes close to Aida.
The mezzo-soprano Ève-Maud Hubeaux jumps in as Amneris and inspires
Alain Altinoglu conducts the Vienna Philharmonic with exactly two physical states: loud and quiet. Loud is loud and undifferentiated, quiet is beguiling. Especially in combination with Elena Stikhina, who as Aida has a wonderful pianissimo, otherwise completely masters her part – and becomes invisible when she is not singing. In 2017, Aida was Anna Netrebko, she filled the statues of the production with life and wore a dress like an ancient Egyptian sculpture. Stikhina wears a black, nondescript dress. That doesn’t help their presence. Luca Salsi, who sings Aida’s father Amonasro, helps himself in a down-to-earth way: he fills the absence of any game idea as a southern Italian mafia boss, less so as an Ethiopian king.
One shines. Ève-Maud Hubeaux found out in early August that she would be singing Amneris. Your stepping in is a triumph. She fills the scene with her appearance, she loves and suffers, she is a human being of voice, flesh and blood. Next to her, everyone else fades.
And then there is a small moment when music and scene come together and it becomes theatre. The priests incite the stupid people’s willingness to go to war, with Verdi there are violent calls for war (“Guerra!”), but here the people are tired. No enthusiasm, certainly not for a war. That’s almost a consolation.