Verdi - Aida / Levine, Domingo, Millo, Metropolitan Opera

Rating:
Summary: Buy it, you'll love it!
Review: Trust me on this one, folks. This is as fine a production of Aida as you will find.Verdi wrote Aida to help celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, so he wrote a Spectacle, and it is as a Spectacle that it should be judged, not by the number of blockbuster arias. You will not find a greater Spectacle in all opera than what is in Act 2.Every member of the cast, the chorus, the ballet dancers, are perfect, and James Levine does his usual fine conducting of the orchestra.So my advice is: Buy it, you'll love it!

Rating:
Summary: Aprille's E flat
Review: Well I will agree that the costumes are a bit ridicilous and the sets seem ready to swallow the singers but Opera is and always will be "Voice, voice and Voice". Even the most convincing actor will fail if the voice does not help him in opera but even the clumsiest actor will have a success if he posseses the Voice of a God (take Sutherland for example, she was as much of an actress as the worst amateur but inside her throat there lived a Magic Fairy!).
Aprille is not one of the greatest voices ever but one hears in her singing a remarkable Italian schooling with not the usual amateurisms we see from Italian singers. She has a solid technique a magnificent middle region, a wonderful top register and an adequate low one. Above all one hears a singer who has worked on her voice endless hours. Her pianissimi are wonderfully controlled, her fortes steady, her interchange of the different registers very good... What amazes is that Aprille sings at the end of the Trioumph Scene a very short but well heard E flat following the great tradition of Angela Peralda and Maria Callas. Her "O patria mia" is fabulously sung... After Maria Callas and Leontyne Price, Aprille is the greatest Aida I have heard.

Dolora is what I would call the great surprise of the evening. She is FABULOUS. She is strongly expressive as an actress although she overdoes it a bit and she sings with tremendous Volume and full voice. High notes, low notes all are there and make you shiver. No wonder that R Fleming had called her "the Human Trompet" Dolora sings extremely loud and she can be heard with her middle region above all else in the Trioumph Scene!!!

Domingo is a bit old but then again the high notes were never his forte thus one hears from him a wonderful Radames. Highly expressive in his duet with Aida.

Milnes is very good as Amonasro although a bit tired vocally.

D Kavrakos sings with his fresh voice, with perfect legato and wonderful expression

Overall this is a wonderful Aida and one should not miss Dolora's Forza and Aprille's incredibly sung italian pianissimi...