Review: ‘Aida’ focuses on music and singing

Quinn Kelsey, left, as Amonasro and Lori Phillips as Aida in Hawaii Opera Theatre's 2012 production of "Aida" at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. (Star-Advertiser photo by FL Morris)

REVIEW BY RUTH BINGHAM / Special to the Star-Advertiser

On Friday, Jan. 27, Hawaii Opera Theatre (HOT) opened its 2012 season with Verdi’s “Aida,” a work that was a sensation at its premiere and that has remained one of the most beloved of operas for 140 years.

Through the decades, “Aida” became legend for its grand-opera-spectacle and exotic Egyptian setting. New productions often vied for ever-grander scale: million-dollar sets, lavish costumes, and parades of half-naked exotic dancers and live animals. Lock-step with that reputation were the legendary mishaps of failed machinery, costume malfunctions, and animals doing what animals will do.

HOT’s production team – Director Henry Akina, Designer Peter Dean Beck, Costumer Helen Rodgers and Conductor Ivan Törzs – neatly sidestepped the exoticism and spectacle to focus on what makes “Aida” truly great: the music and great singing, which was uniformly excellent.

There are two pairs of deadly rivals in this opera, one in love, the other in war. The rivals in love are Amneris, the Egyptian princess, and her slave Aida, the Ethiopian princess, both of whom love the same man, Ramades, a Captain of the Guard who is chosen to command the Egyptian forces. The rivals in war ought to be the two kings, but the Egyptian king is more a figurehead in this story. The real power lies in Ramfis, the Egyptian High Priest, with his hordes of disciples, whose rival is Amonasro, the Ethiopian king and Aida’s father. Both men try to use Ramades as their pawn.

For rivals in love, Akina cast sisters, soprano Lori Phillips as Aida and mezzo-soprano Mary Phillips as Amneris. They made a compelling pair, and their voices matched in strength, expression, and even somewhat in timbre. Their characters moved through HOT’s production as paired opposites: one loved, one scored; one in power, one enslaved; veiled in white in triumph, veiled in black in loss; Aida steadfast, Amneris chameleon-like in opulent new robes in almost every scene.

Mary Phillips as Amneris. (Star-Advertiser photo by FL Morris)

For rivals in war, Akina cast bass Andrew Gangestad in his HOT debut as Ramfis and Hawaii’s homegrown opera star, baritone Quinn Kelsey, as Amonasro. These, too, were paired opposites — one in robes, one in rags; one bald, one in waist-length dreadlocks — but both powerful, excellent singers. It has been delightful to watch Kelsey develop into a professional lead; he was truly outstanding, in acting as well as singing.

The hero Ramades stands above both sets of rivals, his honor intact, his love for Aida his only weakness. Ramades was sung by Mexican lyric tenor José Luis Duval, also in his HOT debut. Duval was quite simply terrific, distinct yet complementing each of the rivals in duets and ensembles.

All five primary leads gave stellar performances not to be missed.

HOT has become quite the family affair for the Kelseys: while Quinn Kelsey was singing a lead, his mother Debbie Kelsey sang in the chorus, and his sister Blythe Kelsey-Takemasa sang as the High Priestess. Kelsey-Takemasa was featured in one of those signature Akina touches, the spicing up of the temple scene with human sacrifice, the priestesses dipping their hands in blood as the lights flooded the stage red. Gory, but fun.

Other local notables included Kaweo Kanoho as the Messenger, who has a wonderful lyric tenor voice, and bass Leon Williams as the King.

In their major roles as Egyptian priests, soldiers, and populace and as Ethiopian prisoners and slaves, the HOT Chorus had a good, solid sound throughout and contributed numerous exceptional passages.

Beck chose a simple but very effective design, built of swaths of cloth hung on slender wooden frames mounted on shallow steps, the vertical swaths serving as walls and backdrops and the angled swaths suggesting pyramids and temples. Changes in setting were created with lovely, nuanced lighting.

Leon Williams as the King of Egypt. (Star-Advertiser photo by FL Morris)

During the famous victory parade, and instead of an actual parade, Akina and Beck used projected images of war gleaned from all eras, from hieroglyphic records to modern warfare, presumably to convey the universal and perennial nature of war. The effect was somewhat jarring, a momentary switch into symbolism amidst a representational production, and the audience did not all follow along.

Costumes seemed to run the gamut, from spot-on characterization among the leads to puzzling. The whole evoked no particular era, with touches from diverse nations and periods. The women of the chorus wore black mu’umu’us of a traditional pattern and the men wore what looked like black Sun Yat-sen suits.

With few changes in costume, it became difficult to distinguish the different roles the chorus had to play: Why were Egyptian soldiers dragging in their own messenger? Were those Ethiopian prisoners herded in at spearpoint? And when did they become the Egyptian populace?

The wigs, on the other hand, were terrific: Aida’s curls, Amonasro’s dreadlocks, Ramades’ flowing locks (shorn in his final scene, like Samson’s), the chorus’s bobs, even the gold-leaf pattern atop Ramfis’s bald pate.

Akina’s staging of his leads was, as usual, excellent, and those intimate scenes — the solos, the duets, the small ensembles, and especially Act III — were highlights of this production. Larger scenes were less clear (when the women are supposed to be dressing Amneris in Act II, why are they flapping that cloth?), but there were also lovely touches, as when the chorus parades with little lights in the background, suggesting a slow swirl of lights on water — very nice!

Under the skilled direction of Törzs, the HOT Orchestra provided excellent context and support throughout, only occasionally overpowering the singers. The most well-known passage in “Aida,” the victory parade, was memorable for trumpeters Kenneth Hafner and Don Hazzard and the intentionally raucous percussion (that cymbal!) by Michael Zell and Darren Duerden. Even with its few rough edges, it was good to hear a live orchestra again; notable solos including those by harpist Constance Uejio, oboist Scott Janusch, and English horn Cathy Weinfield.