Ken Howard/Met Opera

The Met’s first new Aïda since 1988 got off to an inauspicious start on New Year’s Eve when the ersatz-Indiana Jones who opens the show by descending to the stage floor struggled to disengage his harness. Things didn’t improve much after that for director Michael Mayer and Company when star tenor Piotr Beczala struggled through “Celeste Aïda”. Yet he continued, taking down every high note and embarrassing himself and Met General Manager Peter Gelb, who reportedly encouraged Beczala to continue.

However, as happens with curious regularity lately, some Met productions have improved markedly after their initial bumpy runs. Aïda in March reportedly hosted successful Met debuts for Christina Nilsson and Roman Burdenko as Aïda and her father, then on Sunday afternoon this season’s final run boasted the eagerly-awaited Met returns of Mongolian baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat as Amonasro and Elina Garanca (absent from Lincoln Center since 2020) performing her first Verdi role in the US. Her Amneris was, in a word, sensational.

When I attended Garanca’s Met debut in 2008 as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, I never imagined that years later I’d be feeling chills during her searing Judgment Scene. It was greeted with loud and long cheers, similar to what I heard after Sondra Radvanovsky’s “Vissi d’arte” in January, another instance of the audience saluting not only a wonderful performance but also showing its gratitude toward a valued artist too rarely heard in the house.

Ken Howard/Met Opera

Truth be told, Garanca took some time to find her footing. After Brian Jagde’s stentorian “Celeste Aïda,” she entered looking glamourous and imperious. Yet during the trio that followed she wasn’t always successful in penetrating the wall of sound emanating from Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s enthusiastic band in the pit. However, by the second Act, he’d tempered his accompaniment and she’d found her best form.

The high, exposed thrice-repeated “Vieni, amor mio” often defeats an Amneris, but Garanca attacked them softly and securely and then turned her attention to grilling Angel Blue’s exceedingly vulnerable Aïda. The soprano, while much more in command of Verdi’s vocal challenges than she had been on New Year’s Eve, continued as a too passive a victim; it was impossible to believe that she had once been a Princess of Ethiopia. Blue was no match for Garanca’s slyly insistent questioning and fell easily into her trap by uncovering her forbidden love for Radamès. Amneris’s confidence continued to run high during the crowded Triumphal Scene when Garanca positively glowed with smug confidence as she was awarded Radamès.

How important does Amneris’s line at the beginning of the Nile Scene usually seem? Not very, but Garanca’s haughty princess spun out “Sì: io pregherò che Radamès mi doni/Tutto il suo cor, come il mio cor a lui/Sacro è per sempre” with movingly expectant tenderness. Unfortunately, Mayer’s production has Amneris spy on the lovers long before she denounces them which spoils that fatal reveal. The production includes no break between the final two Acts, so Amneris remained on stage to fret over Radamès’s fate. By then the Latvian mezzo was pouring out gorgeous golden tone, immaculate from top to bottom. Those who crave a booming, chesty Amneris may have been disappointed, but she gloried in the high climaxes as few others do.

Despite her often blunt and pitchy singing, Judit Kutasi, her predecessor as Amneris in the Mayer production, won plaudits from some for her enthusiastically flamboyant portrayal. However, “cool” Garanca too twirled her cape with regal flair and eventually paced and cursed with thrilling abandon.

It was, indeed, an afternoon that bolstered the view that Verdi and his librettist Antonio Ghislanzoni may have erred in naming their opera. Blue, though still dramatically far too reticent, sang with vividly plush richness. However, she lacks an ability to float high passages and some forte high notes threatened to curdle. But as before, her tortured encounter with her father brought out the best in both soprano and baritone.

I missed Enkhbat’s debut as Germont two years ago, so I was surprised by his excessively modest dramatic presence. While singing with burnished forthrightness, he failed to command the stage when he’s revealed among the Ethiopian prisoners. However, he demonstrated a bracing legato in that piercing phrase “Pensa che un popolo vinto, straziato/Per te soltanto risorger può” at the conclusion of his duet with Aïda. One hopes with more rehearsal and stronger direction in the future, Enkhbat will more fully realize his enormous potential.

Ken Howard/Met Opera

In late 2022 I heard Jagde twice at Radamès in performances that resulted in the sudden withdrawal of both Latonia Moore and Anita Rachvelishvili from the Frisell production during its final run. Since then, he has refined his singing with more dynamic variation though he continues to pour forth resoundingly exciting high notes unlike those of any tenor now on the world’s stages. One wonders how he’ll do with the more rigorous dramatic challenges facing him in Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades opening at the Met in late May.

Morris Robinson sang the King at the premiere but then immediately took over as Ramfis after an ailing colleague withdrew. His ringing bass made its mark vocally though his static high priest was overshadowed by tall Polish bass Krysztof Baczyk who had debuted in March as the King. His arresting call for war roused the assembled forces who were in lusty voice all afternoon. With six big-voiced singers lined up at the edge of the stage resembling a 19^th century Aïda photo, the Triumphal Scene produced genuine fortissimo thrills I hadn’t experienced at a Met Aïda in a very long time.

Just three nearly sold-out performances of this exciting Aïda remain; I was told that standing room had been available for the matinee and would again be offered at 10am the day of any subsequent sold-out performance. Meanwhile, the 5 May show will be streamed live free on the Met’s website.

Just one Verdi opera is being presented next season at the Met: La Traviata times twenty-one–with unusually interesting casts.