Across Oceans of Sand

The Met's new Aida takes Verdi back to Las Vegas.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Opened in 1993, the Luxor Las Vegas hotel is an inspiration for Michael Mayer's
second Verdi production to be set in America's playground.
Photo by Miguel Hermoso Cuesta for Wikipedia Commons.

Even as the Metropolitan Opera bids farewell to its classic production of Verdi's Aida, expectations are high for its successor which is planned for opening night of the 2020 season. Details have leaked to Superconductor regarding the staging, which will be the third Verdi opera directed at the Met by Michael Mayer. Mr. Mayer, the director who moved Verdi's earlier opera Rigoletto to Las Vegas, Nevada in the 1960s (with the Duke reimagined as a casino entertainer and the title character as his opening act, a Don Rickles-style insult comic) will return to Sin City next year. His plan: move Verdi's Egyptian drama to the flashy modern casinos of that city's current Strip.

Opera Review: Trunk Music

The Met rolls out its "Vegas" Rigoletto.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Diana Damrau and Željko Lučić in the final scene from Michael Mayer's new Rigoletto.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

When you think about it, certain operas allow a fluidity of time and place. Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto has always been one of these. In setting the banned Victor Hugo play Le Roi s'amuse, Verdi and his librettist Francesco Maria Piave moved the story from France to 16th century Mantua. (That Italian region's noble family, the House of Gonzaga, had long died out, and wouldn't sue.) The libertine King Francois I became a safely anonymous Duke, and the opera was allowed to go forward.