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Cecile Cooper newspaper clippings, 1966-1987
1981-11-14 c""Margaret Price makes 'Aida' her own""
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Margaret Price makes 'Aida' her own By Janice Ross Tribune Dance Critic Egyptomania has struck the Bay Area again, only this time the treasures of Giuseppe Verdi's 19th Century grand opera spectacle "Aida" are causing a stir rather that Tutankhamen. The San Francisco Opera Thursday night unveiled a sumptuous production of "Aida" that presented an ideal blend of visual, dramatic and musical elements - just as Verdi intended. Although Thursday's SRO crowd had come full of the anticipation of seeing tenor Luciano Pavarotti in his debut as Radames, Captain of the Egyptian army, they left after nearly four glorious hours singing the praises of the other "Big P"- soprano Margaret Price. Price handled the title role of Aida, the slave girl and princess of Ethiopia magnificently. Before the performance Kurt Herbert Adler had announced that Price was suffering from a bronchial condition aggravated by the weather, but this was only minimally perceptible in the chest tones of her otherwise flawless performance. From the moment she set foot on stage. Price conveyed the anguish and uneasiness of Aida, torn by her love for her distant homeland and her love for Radames, the man who threatens to conquer it. This was magnificantly encapsulated in her first act "Ritorno Vincitor," in which she acknowledged the irony and folly of her urging her father's enemy to return victorious. She conveyed this drama expertly through her voice's swelling from chest register sobs to the high notes of joy at the merest mention of her lover. Price is as consummate an actress vocally as she is physically, varying the qualities of her voice to indicate the conflicting emotions that seemingly pulse through her. In the second act "O patria mia," Price's interpretation as she mourns for the homeland she will never see again was unmannered and filled with life and feeling as her voice dropped suddenly and dramatically to pianissimmo before soaring to the soft and clear high C. Pavarotti's Radames had that high ringing quality and excellent use of head tones that have earned him his renown. At each mention of Aida, Pavarotti revealed Radames' passion for her by soaring to vocal heights. The great tenor's physical drama, however, was more restrained. Delivering the well known "Celeste Aida" in the opening moments of the opera, he planted himself firmly front center stage and sang to the cameras and microphones rather than to the image of heavenly Aida. (The whole production is being filmed for an American broadcast in 1983) Purists might quibble about the volume of his ending to this aria (Verdi wrote this as a difficult B flat pianissimo), but his spun gold lyricism and prodigious breath control more than made up. In the final tomb scene duet, "O terra addio," Pavarotti and Price's exultation and anguish as they bid farewell to earth complimented Verdi's original instructions that it "avoid the conventional death scene (by being) sweet, ethereal and a short duet, a farewell to life." The other three stars of the evening were the young Spanish conductor, Garcia Navarro, Polish mezzo-soprano Stefania Toczyska, who sang Amneris and Simon estes as Amonasro, Aida's father. Navarro did a superb job of leading the orchestra through the textural contrasts of Verdi's score, bringing out the dramatic tensions and the piano intimacy of Aida's theme that weaves throughout. Toczyska came near to stealing the show as Amneris, the plotting princess of Egypt and mistress to Aida. Using liquid smooth transitions from the dark drama of her chest tones to the noble grandeur of head tones, Toczyska shaped her Amneris as a woman who has bvoth a heart and a conscience. In her second act duet where he commiserates with Aida, singing "Fate has been cruel to us both," the emotional richness of Toczyska's voice increases as her duplicity emerges - contrasting all the more effectively with Aida's sweet clarity. Simon Estes made a majestic Amonasro. Like Pavarotti he eschewed physical demonstrations of character in favor of resounding vocal presence. Local bass Kevin Langan, who has been doing so well this season sounded a bit tight as the King of Egypt, gradually warming to his role as the evening progressed. Director Sam Wanamaker and set designer Douglas Schmidt (the man who brought the house down in last season's "Samson et Dalila") provided decor and staging that nearly embraced the opera's dual levels of intimacy and grandeur. Wanamaker's Hollywood credits were nicely in evidence throughout the evening resulting in a lavish triumphal scene (cast of 222) that looked like a very toney Cecil B. de Mille extravaganza. The palette for Schmidt's set and Lawrence Casey's Egyptiana costumes were dazzling, glowing with irridescent baked-enamel shades of blue, gold and lavender. Margo Sappington's Egypto-balletic choreography in the triumphal scene's grand march looked oddly misplaced with its strictly classical steps and arbitrarily two dimensional "hieroglyphic" poses. Too self-conscious to be a satire and too unfocused not to be, it left the poor soloist Christian Holder, looking like "Scheherazade's" Golden Slave accidentally leaping into the wrong ballet. Tribune-oakland, ca (?) Nov 14, 1981
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Margaret Price makes 'Aida' her own By Janice Ross Tribune Dance Critic Egyptomania has struck the Bay Area again, only this time the treasures of Giuseppe Verdi's 19th Century grand opera spectacle "Aida" are causing a stir rather that Tutankhamen. The San Francisco Opera Thursday night unveiled a sumptuous production of "Aida" that presented an ideal blend of visual, dramatic and musical elements - just as Verdi intended. Although Thursday's SRO crowd had come full of the anticipation of seeing tenor Luciano Pavarotti in his debut as Radames, Captain of the Egyptian army, they left after nearly four glorious hours singing the praises of the other "Big P"- soprano Margaret Price. Price handled the title role of Aida, the slave girl and princess of Ethiopia magnificently. Before the performance Kurt Herbert Adler had announced that Price was suffering from a bronchial condition aggravated by the weather, but this was only minimally perceptible in the chest tones of her otherwise flawless performance. From the moment she set foot on stage. Price conveyed the anguish and uneasiness of Aida, torn by her love for her distant homeland and her love for Radames, the man who threatens to conquer it. This was magnificantly encapsulated in her first act "Ritorno Vincitor," in which she acknowledged the irony and folly of her urging her father's enemy to return victorious. She conveyed this drama expertly through her voice's swelling from chest register sobs to the high notes of joy at the merest mention of her lover. Price is as consummate an actress vocally as she is physically, varying the qualities of her voice to indicate the conflicting emotions that seemingly pulse through her. In the second act "O patria mia," Price's interpretation as she mourns for the homeland she will never see again was unmannered and filled with life and feeling as her voice dropped suddenly and dramatically to pianissimmo before soaring to the soft and clear high C. Pavarotti's Radames had that high ringing quality and excellent use of head tones that have earned him his renown. At each mention of Aida, Pavarotti revealed Radames' passion for her by soaring to vocal heights. The great tenor's physical drama, however, was more restrained. Delivering the well known "Celeste Aida" in the opening moments of the opera, he planted himself firmly front center stage and sang to the cameras and microphones rather than to the image of heavenly Aida. (The whole production is being filmed for an American broadcast in 1983) Purists might quibble about the volume of his ending to this aria (Verdi wrote this as a difficult B flat pianissimo), but his spun gold lyricism and prodigious breath control more than made up. In the final tomb scene duet, "O terra addio," Pavarotti and Price's exultation and anguish as they bid farewell to earth complimented Verdi's original instructions that it "avoid the conventional death scene (by being) sweet, ethereal and a short duet, a farewell to life." The other three stars of the evening were the young Spanish conductor, Garcia Navarro, Polish mezzo-soprano Stefania Toczyska, who sang Amneris and Simon estes as Amonasro, Aida's father. Navarro did a superb job of leading the orchestra through the textural contrasts of Verdi's score, bringing out the dramatic tensions and the piano intimacy of Aida's theme that weaves throughout. Toczyska came near to stealing the show as Amneris, the plotting princess of Egypt and mistress to Aida. Using liquid smooth transitions from the dark drama of her chest tones to the noble grandeur of head tones, Toczyska shaped her Amneris as a woman who has bvoth a heart and a conscience. In her second act duet where he commiserates with Aida, singing "Fate has been cruel to us both," the emotional richness of Toczyska's voice increases as her duplicity emerges - contrasting all the more effectively with Aida's sweet clarity. Simon Estes made a majestic Amonasro. Like Pavarotti he eschewed physical demonstrations of character in favor of resounding vocal presence. Local bass Kevin Langan, who has been doing so well this season sounded a bit tight as the King of Egypt, gradually warming to his role as the evening progressed. Director Sam Wanamaker and set designer Douglas Schmidt (the man who brought the house down in last season's "Samson et Dalila") provided decor and staging that nearly embraced the opera's dual levels of intimacy and grandeur. Wanamaker's Hollywood credits were nicely in evidence throughout the evening resulting in a lavish triumphal scene (cast of 222) that looked like a very toney Cecil B. de Mille extravaganza. The palette for Schmidt's set and Lawrence Casey's Egyptiana costumes were dazzling, glowing with irridescent baked-enamel shades of blue, gold and lavender. Margo Sappington's Egypto-balletic choreography in the triumphal scene's grand march looked oddly misplaced with its strictly classical steps and arbitrarily two dimensional "hieroglyphic" poses. Too self-conscious to be a satire and too unfocused not to be, it left the poor soloist Christian Holder, looking like "Scheherazade's" Golden Slave accidentally leaping into the wrong ballet. Tribune-oakland, ca (?) Nov 14, 1981
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