In review: from around the world: London.(International ... Aida)(Opera Review)

In the bad old days, some would have you believe, opera singers used to stand there, hold their arms out in outlandish postures and sing. That's all over now, of course--or at least it was, until Robert Wilson began directing. His Aida, which opened at the Royal Opera House on November 8, is in one sense an operatic fashion statement--every major theater needs to wear the Wilson label at least once--but in another, the production returns the lyric art to a reputed former state much harped on by detractors. This Aida would have made Zinka Milanov look like a whirling dervish.

Drama as we know it never intruded upon Wilson's stylized, slow-motion (or no-motion) visualization. Occasionally, the lighting went frantic for a while, with the color of the plain backdrop suddenly turning violent orange, or twenty different shades of blue in speedy succession. All this was assuredly packed with meaningful intent. But one was left wondering what it all meant.

Then there were Jacques Reynaud's costumes. Standing proudly with a piece of wood rising from between his shoulder blades, his fingers artfully splayed, Johan Botha (Radames) looked like the Mikado in some antique D'Oyly Carte staging. The principal male dancer, who tore gamely around the stage in Makram Hamdan's a bit of this, a bit of that" choreography, was presumably an operatic in-joke, since he looked like Peter Sellars as Puck.

The ritual scenes looked the least silly, and the triumphal scene, though shorn of its procession and indeed of any sense of celebration whatever, passed torpidly. But the rest was at once seriously dreary and ridiculous. In an interview in the program (what a giveaway these usually are!), Wilson told the truth as he sees ...