AIDA in Berkeley 2: What’s to celebrate?
So Aida is set to open in three weeks, meaning we are halfway through our rehearsal process. (We have five weeks of room rehearsal before we go into tech--a blissful exception to the short rehearsal process rule in opera in America.) The opera is almost fully staged and certain scenes are already in great shape--notably the scenes that are better suited to a chamber approach in Act III. But the one scene that hasn’t been tackled yet in its entirety is the one which makes everyone’s eyebrows raise at the thought of a “chamber Aida”--the enormous ‘triumphal march’ of Act II. It’s been kept off mostly because of scheduling conflicts, but in many ways it’s good to save this deceptive scene for the last. (We finish staging it tomorrow, incidentally.)
Why deceptive? First off, you have to wonder what on earth Egypt is celebrating as a triumph when the very next scene has Radames planning for war again, and with the same exact enemy. As I mention in my program notes (which I published last week), isn’t the whole scene a musical iteration of the “Mission Accomplished” sign hanging over George Bush well before anything was accomplished in Iraq?
I also mentioned that a comparison with the march’s equivalent scene in Don Carlo, the opera that immediately precedes Aida, is an illuminating study: on one hand we have a “glorious” march of victory in war opposite the plea of the POWs for mercy; and on the other we have a solemnly dignified auto da fe with the machine of the Spanish Inquisition at work despite “a heavenly voice” pleading for compassion. These scenes have so much in common, with a punishing system amalgamated from politics and religion celebrating its own glory and power in a way that I think should strike us as sickening. Don Carlo has the heavenly voice stop the action, but in Aida it’s even better. Amonasro stops the action with what I consider the ‘moral of the story,’ beginning the concertanto with a prophetic warning: ‘Those in power today are destined to be tomorrow’s slaves, so show mercy now if you hope for some when the tables turn.’ For me, this is much more satisfying because of the (truly cynical) dramatic irony that this true message of compassion, voiced in as beautiful a melody as there is in the opera, comes not only from a man concealing his identity, but a man who will show no mercy himself in Act III (and, in our production, Act IV). For me, this is a Brechtian moment, where the action stops and all are allowed to provoke their character and the audience with the question: “Must the world be like this?”
So how are we doing it? We will remain in the family room, where reporters and journalists capture the first family watching the parade on television. Here we will get a sense of distance between those in power and those they represent, as well as show how sheltered this family is from the true nature of combat, which never gets represented on stage. The chorus being placed off-stage will add to this effect in an ambiguous and, I think, effective way.
A live feed, however, will allow the image of the powerful to be distributed en masse, thereby allowing us the ability to have “public utterances” even when the public isn’t physically present. And what more reassuring and happy image can there be but of a happy family enjoying the victory in material comfort?
Actually, there’s an even better image to inspire patriotism: children who love their country. That is why the ballet will be a solo rifle dance for a young girl, who shows that she too will be ready to fight and kill for her country. An effigy of the enemy is brought out and destroyed by the girl in between more balletic movement. Throughout all of this, she is smiling big for the camera and looking as adorable as can be. We’ve called her “Propaganda Girl,” because that is precisely what she is there for. The disturbing “dance sequence” that opens the film Jesus Camp inspired this choice, although it did make me realize how martial and militaristic my high school Flags team was, where flags and rifles alternated and no one seemed to find it disturbing.
The struggle between public and private lives continues throughout the scene by having the camera set up a station in one corner of the living room, while everything that does not happen in front of the camera--the telling and always overlooked asides of the principal characters--can actually come to the foreground. This, I think, will really mark the success of our approach, because the audience will actually be able to follow what is happening among the protagonists and allow them to carry the scene, rather than get lost among the human, zoological, and physical scenery. And, of course, rather than just standing in place and hardly moving because there is no room for anyone, the singers in this production can actually move and continue telling the story physically, rather than revert to “park and bark” mode.
So doing Aida without the elephants, donkeys, thousands of supers and a duty to illustrate ancient Egypt allows us to represent what I think is really happening in this scene.
(Oh, and because I am always asked: we did find a way to incorporate elephants, although I won’t spoil the surprise for those who might come see it.)
Friday, June 29, 2007
Pictured above: most definitely NOT our production of Aida!