The principals of the touring Chisinau National Opera offer a display of heart-and-soul singing in this Ellen Kent and Opera International presentation of Aida.
A somewhat less committed orchestra under Nicolae Dohotaru can't quite manage the more subtle moments in the score, but as these, apart from the overture, are few enough, the fanfares and marches make up for any musical deficiencies. Equally, while the singers don't indulge much in the finer psychological hints of the libretto, their straight-forward approach allows them to work at full voice, and those voices are very full, coloured, well-balanced and thrilled to bits with the dramatic possibilities of Verdi's vision of ancient Egypt and even more ancient Ethiopia.
When singers invest their roles so completely, minor emotional rivalries emerge, so it is no great surprise to realise, as the sandy walls close over Aida and her lover at the end, that the sympathy is really with Aida's rival Amneris, sung with such sympathy by Nadejda Stoianova that Aida herself (a tender Galina Bernaz) seems more token than crucial to the plot.
The plot itself has its little oddities, but what opera doesn't? What is significant here, as the Egyptians muster against the Ethiopians, and Radames, hero of the protracted hour, struggles to reconcile his political and his emotional loyalties, is that even minor characters sing with confidence and skill, including Ruslan Pacatovici as the messenger. The choral work is at its best in the temple scenes, despite some uncertainties of cue and pitch.
There are tiresome aspects, not least the slow pace of the processionals; no one remembered that if you can't bring on the elephants the dancing girls aren't much of a substitute, while painted sets suggesting Alpine ranges of pyramids are just a little bit dated now. But in a very long opera, with an audience sucking like babies on bottles of water or passing beakers of beer and plates of food along the rows, the cast brings complete conviction as well as a lot of really hard work to this production, which is directed by Eugen Platon.
- Mary Leland
