Her use of hieroglyphics, and an ever-present eye, added to this effect, making the contrast between an ancient society, and the universal, modern quality of the emotions of the principle characters, even more striking. The flashy colors - turquoise, gold and orange, in particular - and the sets, especially of the Temple of Ptah and for the Triumphal March, insured that the audience was transported to a different time and place. However, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw, as the ancient Egypt of Rhodes' vision was literally eye-catching,but not at all distracting. The performance by the Houston Grand Opera (HGO) succeeded, brilliantly, because the company put its faith in Verdi, in his intricate orchestration, his haunting choruses, powerful arias and ensembles, while simultaneously taking a chance, with an original scenic and costume designer who brought new life to Verdi's Egypt. How do you reach an audience living in a state of permanent war, for which patriotism has been reduced to hollow grandstanding, and love is a matter of a multiple-choice selection on a television reality show? Do you play it safe, do a standard interpretation, which risks coming off as a museum piece? Or do you, instead, jazz it up, putting live elephants and tigers on stage, along with writhing, naked slaves, perhaps setting it as a gang war in Los Angeles? There is an interesting paradox, which confronts an opera company, when undertaking such a masterpiece today. It is also, therefore, not surprising, that ∺ida became one of his most popular operas in Italy, when it opened several months later in Milan at La Scala. Verdi was himself an impassioned patriot and backer of unification, and one can see and hear, in the appeals to patriotism in the opera, the personal commitment he had to the ideal of a united nation.

The opera premiered in Egypt in December 1871, one month after the convening of the first national Italian parliament in Rome, the culmination of a half-century struggle to establish a unified Italy. It should not be surprising that Verdi would be focused on the implications, and complications, for individuals, facing issues of grand strategy - issues such as war, and matters of church-state relations. The conflicting emotions of patriotism and betrayal, love and rejection, family loyalty versus national duty, give Verdi a rich field from which to produce a variety of recognizable human strengths and frailties. Embedded within that struggle is a tragic love story, as noble, and not-so-noble characters, seek to balance their love for their nation - and their duty to their nation - with their desires for personal happiness.

Sf opera aida review