Awaiting his trial, Amneris implores Radames to deny the charges against him. Radames, believing Aida to have been killed, says he longs for death. Amneris tells him that Amonasro has been killed, but that Aida has escaped. If Radames denies his love for Aida, she will save him. Radames refuses. Amneris, furious, leaves him to be tried and convicted. In front of the court, Radames refuses to answer Ramfis’ accusations. He is found guilty and sentenced to die by being entombed alive. Amneris, unable to persuade Ramfis to overturn the sentence, desperately curses her jealousy as well as those who sentenced Radames to death. As Radames is sealed into his tomb, a figure appears in the darkness. It is Aida, who has hidden there to die with him. Alone at last, with the voices of the Egyptians echoing above them, Radames and Aida wait for death to take them to a better world. In many ways, Aida is bound up with contemporary history, however. When Ismail Pasha, the new Viceroy of Egypt, arrived in Paris to represent his country at the Exposition universelle in June 1867, the Egyptian pavilion that he had erected on a large corner of the Champs de Mars – featuring, among myriad things, a pharaoh’s temple, a modern-day bazaar, and a panorama of the Isthmus of Suez created by the Suez Canal company – was described by one French commentator as ‘a living Egypt, a picturesque Egypt, the Egypt of Ismail Pasha’. His lavish spectacle was almost certainly designed to present Egypt as a major player on the modern world stage, and this idea also lay behind his commission, two years later, of Verdi’s Aida, which was to be performed in Cairo’s first opera house, positioned beside the recently opened Suez Canal. Actors Jamie Francis, Gregor Copeland, Rain De Rye Barrett, Chris Edgerley, David Galea, Jonathon Hands, Kyle Harrison-Pope, Jamal Lowe, Eduardo Nunez, Suleiman Suleiman Ramfis and his acolytes are no longer mystics but senior military staff. The temple – spare wooden benches and gray walls like one of Le Corbusier’s chapels – has no religious iconography that motivates this society’s military purpose, save a few flags. It is war, duty, sacrifice themselves that are sacralized, as the chorus hold their assault rifles aloft as if divinely blessed. The sets are shaped so as to feel both claustrophobic and imposing. Amonasro, leader of the Ethiopians, is cast in Act three as a paramilitary guerrilla, as if to suggest myriad recent contemporary global insurgent wars, though his ruthlessness with Aida suggests doesn’t prompt us to feel that much sympathy for the wretched of the earth.

Carsen sweeps it all aside in this stark, contemporary vision of the piece, which despite its slightly wearying design arrives smartly at the dramatic nexus of Verdi’s grand operas: love and politics failing to add up, and a sense of horror about what people in love with war will do to each other. His production replaces that of David McVicar, which was notable for its gory procession in Act two, putting in its place something more abstract and chilling. But the whole was so much more than the sum of its parts thanks to Elder’s sure direction, delivering real, spine-tingling grandeur in the choral scenes while balancing chorus and orchestra impeccably. It’s not a production built on traditional spectacle, which can be both frustrating and clarifying. The ballet sequences are a mixed affair. At the top of Act two Amneris’ servants are given little more to do than extravagantly and mechanically set a dinner table, at which no one ever actually sits down to eat. The final scene takes place in a sort of weapons storage facility, which is oddly lit with a rather muddy yellow light that doesn’t capture either transcendental reconciliation to the heroes’ fate nor the score’s final invocation, perhaps hopeful, of “ pace .”A high-level cast and ‘La Dolce Vita’ setting charm from the get-go in San Francisco Opera’s The Elixir of Love (27/11/2023) The chorus’s precision, and the exciting fortissimos and whispers this work demands, made them the stars Ferocity and heartbreak’: Elīna Garanča, right, as Amneris, with Angel Blue in the title role, in the Royal Opera’s Aida. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian The Belfast Ensemble conducted by Tom Deering in rehearsal at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Photograph: Neil Harrison Carsen’s wish to show the destruction of the individual by the apparatus of the state is powerfully fulfilled by the three principals. Francesco Meli is an upright, proud Radamès, very much a man of patriotism and integrity, but convincingly humbled by love. His tenor reached strongly to the top, but sometimes without nuance, though he paced his performance effectively. As Aida, Elena Stikhina gave an astonishingly insightful portrait of emotional suffering and inner conflict. This was not a showy performance, and at first I wondered if her soprano would rise above the resounding orchestral forces, but she saved her vocal intensity for the latter stages of the opera where it made a tremendously affecting impression. Rarely has torment and anguish sounded so sweet. Agnieszka Rehlis’s Amneris transformed persuasively from a spoilt, contemptuous schemer to a woman rent apart by despair when her pleading with the priests fails to save Radamès from his fate.

In this, his penultimate annual season at Covent Garden before moving to the London Symphony Orchestra, it is tempting to reach out and beg him to stay. Drawing stirring ensemble playing and intimate solos from the orchestra, he is also superbly served by the strong and immaculate chorus, always on parade or on manoeuvres and rejoicing in violence, even as interpreted in dance by choreographer Rebecca Howell. Insula’s Sky Burial at the Barbican is a stunning evening, unique, and vitally important (22/11/2023) An international roster of opera stars including Juan Diego Flórezand Danielle de Niese in La bohème, Elena Stikhinaand Ludovic Tézierin Aida ,and Bryn Terfelin The Barber of Seville Golden-toned: Francesco Meli as Radames, with Elena Stikhina as Aida. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/the GuardianEgypt is at war with Ethiopia. Aida, daughter of the Ethiopian King Amonasro, has been captured and made prisoner. She now serves Amneris, the Egyptian King’s daughter, but Aida has concealed her true identity. The cast sees several figures return from the first time round, and some Covent Garden favorites return. Ludovic Tézier and Soloman Howard reprise Amonasro and Ramfis respectively. The latter was granite-like voice as a cold, unsentimental fanatic in a chilling characterization; his attachment to duty is quite different to Radamès, who is a romantic heart – Howard’s Ramfis was all dead-eyed resolve and sense of destiny. His accusatory cries of “Radamès” in the trial sequence were cavernous.

CALLAS – PARIS, 1958 in cinemas soon should not be missed by opera lovers of whatever vintage (06/11/2023)Aida – Elena Stikhina, Radamès – Francesco Meli, Amneris – Agnieszka Rehlis, Amonasro – Ludovic Tézier, Ramfis – Soloman Howard, King of Egypt – In Sung Sim, High Priestess – Francesca Chiejina, Messenger – Andrés Presno; Director – Robert Carsen, Conductor – Sir Antonio Pappano, Set Designer – Miriam Buether, Costume Designer – Annemarie Woods, Lighting Designers – Robert Carsen and Peter van Praet, Choreographer – Rebecca Howell, Video Designer – Duncan McLean, Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House. Updated! English National Ballet in 2023/24: introducing Maria Seletskaja their new music director (07/11/2023) The somewhat grey staging remains unremittingly bleak; as war itself is, of course. We are a long way away from Egypt here (although at one point the elevated viewpoint did reveal a decidedly pyramidal shadow!); the militaristic setting is unnamed, a conflation of several territories, and therefore a reminder that the machinations of war continue whatever the era. Video footage of war reminds us of its terrors in no uncertain fashion, and perfectly delivered in Duncan McLean’s video designs, while the ballet acts out conflict to fine effect. Although cast on a grand scale, the sets do feel somewhat claustrophobic, and deliberately so – the final, offstage calls of ‘Pace, pace, pace’ by Amneris made all the more effect for it.