The Royal Opera House (ROH) in London and the Metropolitan Opera House (MET) in New York. Two of the world's leading opera houses recently staged their opera <Aida> respectively.
Verdi< > is set against the backdrop of a war between Egypt and Ethiopia, and tells the love triangle between the Egyptian general Radames, the Ethiopian princess Aida, and the Egyptian princess Amneris, who has a crush on Radames. Although it was the same opera, the performances presented by the two theaters were completely different.
One opera, two interpretations
The MET<Aida> is set in the opera "Egypt in the Age of the Pharaohs" on a grand scale. This has been used in a very general way as an opportunity to satisfy the fantasy of <being a child> to the fullest. The "triumphal march" scene, which many middle-aged people will remember as the music of an elementary school sports party, is the culmination of such a production. In this scene, where Egypt celebrates the glory of Egypt as it greets the returning troops after the victory in the battle against Ethiopia, most of the productions provided the most spectacular spectacle as far as the budget allowed.
In the 2003 <Aida > performed at the Jamsil Stadium in South Korea, he not only performed horses, but also elephants and camels. The MET also put on an epic spectacle with 150 actors, 94 choirs, 6 lead singers, and 4 horses against the backdrop of a seemingly enormous statue of a deity and colonnade.
On the other hand, it is the < child of ROH> There were no camels, no pharaohs, no pyramids on the stage. Director Robert Carlson stripped away all the decorative elements and instead focused on the three words that frequently appear in the opera. War, death, and the motherland. He believed that a war that begins with the invasion of a weak country by a powerful nation is a history that has been repeated countless <times before and after Verdi> and that it could be reinterpreted as a story that modern audiences could relate to.
As a result, instead of a shrine, the stage was erected with a high exposed concrete wall. The soldiers' uniforms only give us an idea of the modern era, but they cannot identify the country. The flag that symbolizes this fictional country is a combination of the flags of the United States, China, and Russia, which are the great powers that determine world affairs. The temple of the Vulcan, who seeks to receive a blessing of weapons before the battle against Ethiopia, is converted into a church, and a military general appears in place of a high-ranking clergyman.
To the accompaniment of a roaring orchestra, the army shouted, "Advance, we will build human shields on the banks of the Nile... War, war, and death to the aggressor!" and when the soldiers raised machine guns cast long shadows to create a forest of weapons, <Aida> was no longer the story of an ancient exotic.
Anti-war through anti-war
The triumphal march scene in Act 2, Chapter 2, which I mentioned earlier, was overwhelming in a completely different sense from the previous interpretation. The sound of a golden trumpet announces the beginning of the funeral instead of praising the glory of victory. The stage is filled with veterans' coffins draped in flags, not marching victory soldiers.
Behind the backs of the king and princess Amneris, who look down on the funeral with solemn expressions, photographs of the war dead emerge one by one like a mosaic, and soon they fill the entire wall. Then, the horrors of war that caused the deaths of soldiers, such as a camera that moves in search of the target with a crosshair that helps aiming, bombs dropped, dust clouds rising, and submarines advancing through the current, are shown nakedly in the video.
(The rest of the story is from the soup)