Parlando: The COC Blog

I was very disappointed with the Aida performance but I did not want to comment on it until it was finished. This opera was designed with some elaborate costume and setting in mind and you can diminish that somewhat, but perhaps you can't eliminate it. To have Aida dressed like a frumpy cleaning lady would require going back to the original work and rethinking what the librettist and composer had in mind. If they knew the set would provide no support, maybe they would have rewritten their respective efforts. To give too much freedom to a current direction perhaps detracts from the original artists efforts. Had I known that this opera would be done this way, I would not have attended it. The performances were great but they really need some setting to make this kind of fairy tale like opera work.