The Egyptian Radamès is perhaps the most miserable figure among Giuseppe Verdi's really heroic tenors anyway.
In Katharina Thalbach's Dresden production of "Aida" he looks pretty miserable as soon as the curtain rises: next to Georg Zeppenfeld's authoritarian Ramfis, who walks on huge platform soles under his black priest's skirts, he appears, a head and a half smaller, with all still only as a poor sausage to his burning ambition.
And because a similar constellation between Amneris and Aida soon emerges - here too, charisma and body language make it abundantly clear who is the boss and who is the servant - you quickly guess how it must end when two such loser types try to join forces against the hostile environment : very very sad.
It becomes so in several respects: not only because of the tragic plot, but also because the director has never tried to draw any false ground in the fatal events or set barbs.
One experiences, in Ezio Toffolutti's mighty, dreary ritual panoramas, which come along as an emaciated revival of historical sandal films, right down to the pharaonic wedge beard, a picture book staging - only that this picture book with its jammed standard gesture pathos, symmetrically arranged parallel to the ramp, is not good and often bad is boring.
Hardly any real interaction, let alone believable intimacy, just the exchange of stale, conventional forms and formulas;
At least the extra series is doing well
In an economic sense, this overarching, completely free of tension and mystery-free gait is most likely to benefit the powerfully developed choir rehearsed by André Kellinghaus, the dance corps in Christopher Tölle's lavish choreography and the extra series.
There's never any doubt about where and how to open your mouth, wave an arm or stick a muscular butt into the headlights.
There is no lack of decorative tableaus, but there are emotionally touching events;
and an honest conclusion of the evening should be that long-standing and well-deserving stage artists - Toffolutti is approaching eighty, and Ms. Thalbach is also ready to retire - have the right to take things a little easier at some point.
However, it is sometimes easier for the music to attract the attention it deserves, especially with such standard developments.
Certainly for this reason, too, Christian Thielemann is not a fan of overly thought-tangled productions, and here in any case, where the other extreme of a mere costumed concert was often not far off, he has the available freedom with "his" (one, as we know, now with an expiry date provided possessive pronoun) Staatskapelle thoroughly exploited.
Admirable once again is his art of breathing with the singers in an alert mixture of calculation and spontaneity, of taking them tenderly by the hand, so to speak, with the finest agogic formations or syntactically precisely set phrasing, and thereby making their voices and the score bloom as a whole.
But the orchestral colors themselves – the elegiac sweetness of the prelude (after the previous political statement of the Ukrainian national anthem), the Mediterranean starry magic of the Nile image, but also harsh dramatic concentrations such as in the despairing collapse of the king’s daughter – were given a sometimes spellbinding intensity in his adaptation.
Surroundings – above all the Requiem – sounded again and again;
How Verdi sums up and sublimates the experiences of his entire life as a composer, which he considered almost complete at the time, is rarely so impressive to listen to and listen to.
but also harsh dramatic concentrations, such as in the case of the despairing collapse of the king's daughter - acquired a sometimes spellbinding intensity in his reproduction.
Surroundings – above all the Requiem – sounded again and again;
How Verdi sums up and sublimates the experiences of his entire life as a composer, which he considered almost complete at the time, is rarely so impressive to listen to and listen to.
but also harsh dramatic concentrations, such as in the case of the despairing collapse of the king's daughter - acquired a sometimes spellbinding intensity in his reproduction.
Surroundings – above all the Requiem – sounded again and again;
How Verdi sums up and sublimates the experiences of his entire life as a composer, which he considered almost complete at the time, is rarely so impressive to listen to and listen to.
The solo parts are full of character
The solo roles were cast effectively and full of character right down to the smaller roles: Ofeliya Pogosyan's ethereal temple singer, Simeon Esper's terrified messenger of war, Andreas Bauer Kanabas' king who struggled to maintain a fragile dignity and above all the powerfully present Georg Zeppenfeld;
Quinn Kelsey presented a darkly angry, fanatical Amonasro.
Among the protagonists, Francesco Meli presented himself as Radamès with the way in which he already thickened the end of each phrase in his performance aria and later, apparently unwilling to use organic piani, the whispering silence of the Nile image as well as the desperately enraptured death sweetness of the final duet bursting in forced interventions, as a technically highly capable but all too narcissistic tenor pushing towards the extrovert and thus missed every chance
The two competing women are more emancipated: Oksana Volkova's Amneris as far as possible in terms of acting, Krassimira Stoyanova above all through her voice.
Despite a limited color spectrum that sometimes fades in the highs, the mezzo-soprano succeeded in convincingly portraying an icy, deep loneliness that suddenly turned to malice;
the heroine in the title, however, becoming more and more free from act to act between moments of longing deepening and a desperate activism, did her best, unlike her partner, precisely in the ability to silent withdrawal, as a trembling resonance chamber of the increasing skepticism about humanity of her creator.