Die beste Bildung

Last Wednesday was my second time at the Bayerische Staatsoper. This time I went with a group to see Aida, probably the first opera I’ve ever heard of but never have gotten to know very well. As a child I played a couple tunes from the opera in those trumpet lessons which I had no affinity for (the teacher was great, it’s just that I don’t like the instrument at all), and was told about this great story of an Ethiopian princess who is enslaved in Egypt and completes with the Pharoah’s daughter for the affection of the Egyptian commander that had defeated her country. Last year when there was a five-night season of Aida in Hong Kong (very unusual for a city with a general lack of appreciation for fine culture), my school choir was invited to play the Egyptian slaves in the production. Unfortunately, for some reason which I can no longer recall, I decided not to take part in the performance. This was a decision which I still regret up till this day, so watching Aida here in Munich was a way to at least partially make up for what I missed.

I had Sara’s tickets in addition to my own. After going for dinner together at an Italian restaurant in the Salvatorpassage, we met up with the rest of the group at the entrance of the Staatstheater. Unlike my last time there, I had some photos taken in the magnificent galleries of the theatre, though I can’t post them now because they’re on other people’s cameras. The two of us then found our places on the extreme left of the third ring – I had bought two of the last three tickets available (out of around 2100), so the view was predictably terrible. Fortunately, there were a few unoccupied spaces in a more central position in the row behind ours. There we could see slightly more than half of the stage (more than what I saw during Der Rosenkavalier), though sometimes we still had to stand on the 2cm-wide base of the balustrade in order to see what was going on.

All that standing in uncomfortable postures was not in vain. This was a modernized production, so in place of the traditional colourful Egyptian costumes, the actors were dressed almost exclusively white and black, with the occasional gold and silver as a symbol of status. And instead of the usual enormous pyramid which dominates the stage, there was a set of large white panels which shifted from one scene to another. The set looked deceptively simple, but actually allowed for some very spectacular transformations and transitions because the whole thing could rotate. The scenes in which blood was spilled on an area with illuminated tiles (as depicted above) was especially impressive.

The opera allowed for many grand scenes involving almost a large choir of actors – scenes showing the Egyptians entering Ethiopia, offering praise to their gods, celebrating their victory, and finally encircling Aida and Radames as she commits suicide in his arms after a failed attempt at escaping the country. The choir was of fantastic quality and to hear them was my favourite part of the evening. I also enjoyed watching and hearing the actresses playing Aida and the Pharoah’s daughter Amneris. The show had its imperfections though – the actor who played Radames didn’t have a sufficiently high vocal range for his role, so he sounded rather strained at times, making his performance much less less convincing than it could have been. And though this is absolutely not the fault of the opera company, I am not very fond of Italian libretti.

In any case, I did have a great evening, and having seen three operas now (the first two being Otello and Der Rosenkavalier), I understand and appreciate more about the art than I used to. It is indeed acquired taste – at first it can be rather confusing, but for those who have the enthusiasm and patience to watch and hear carefully, opera is one of the most splendid art forms one can ever encounter, and the extreme amount of effort put into each production makes it more astounding than most modern music. I already have bought tickets for my next opera – that being Turandot by the Deutsche Oper Berlin – and I eagerly look forward to stepping into an opera house again.