The Metropolitan Opera Revives Aida...again.
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| Stephanie Blythe as Amneris. Photo by Marty Sohl, © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera. |
Monday night at the Met featured the company's second performance of Aida this season, with a cast featuring Violeta Urmana in the title role, Stephanie Blythe as Amneris and tenor Marcelo Àlvarez as Radames.
This was a pretty good outing for Mr. Àlvarez, the Argentine tenor who has been a regular at the Met in the last decade. His voice remains two sizes too small for Radames, but he sang with musical intelligence, navigating the score's pitfalls like a careful explorer inside a pyramid.
Stephanie Blythe is likely to be this company's Amneris for a long time. And that is a good thing. The New York-bred mezzo diva is a formidable stage presence, with an instrument that can lay the smack-down on both Wagnerian Gods (James Morris, the Met's ex-Wotan was the priest Ramfis) and callow Egyptian generals. And she doesn't look totally ridiculous wearing a blue turkey on her head.
Ms. Blythe's big, flexible voice rides low, but is capable of navigating Amneris' mercurial temperament. She was potent in the early ensembles, and supremely bitchy in the Act II confrontaton scene. This was not a princess to mess with. The voice is powerful, and sometimes rides over the orchestra and surrounding ensembles.
