I must open on a sad note by recording the death of a longtime colleague and friend, Richard Dyer, who for thirty years was the highly respected chief music critic for The Boston Globe. Though we wrote for several of the same magazines (notably High Fidelity) from the 1960s onward, and Richard even reviewed me twice (once as novelist, once as actor) we did not actually cross paths except in passing until the last decade or so, when we finally had a couple of luncheon meetings up in the Berkshires (Tanglewood having been on his beat for all those years) and began a regular correspondence. Richard’s letters were full of keen observations and reminiscences, both professional and personal, and of a love of music and an optimism he somehow maintained to the end despite full awareness of the worsening trends. He was as knowledgeable about theatre as about music, and eagerly shared obscure materials in both areas. I’ll miss Richard, as will all who knew him, and the world of classical music at large.

Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, the most finished of all his works showing the tragic fates of lovers caught in deadly political and religious conflicts, and thereby the most powerful, concise statement of grand opera as a form, has returned to the Metropolitan Opera’s repertory in a new production. Directed by Michael Mayer and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, it had its premiere on New Year’s eve. I saw the performance of June 7th. I also have to hand two previously unheard recordings—not exactly hot off the presses, but new to me—to give us some triangulation on the production and performance.

The work’s demands are such that one seldom sees or hears anything approaching their complete fulfillment—that’s neither expected nor required for the work to convey a satisfying experience—but I can’t recall an Aida as flat and empty as this one, despite some willing performers. To sketch the framework first: it is Mayer’s conceit that we are seeing the opera’s action through the eyes of modern Egyptological explorers who first inspect, then plunder the artifacts of the Pharaonic civilization. They troupe in and out, most prominently in the Prelude and Triumphal Scene but elsewhere as well, and hover above the final entombment. Thus are the specters of Orientalism, Colonialist Exoticism, and Cultural Appropriation conjured; thus are we put at arm’s length from the story and its emotional impact, and invited to pass moral judgment—a loathsome tactic. With all exoticisms and ethnic distinctions either erased or turned upside down (Aida’s black, her Daddy’s white; Egyptians and Ethiopians are undifferentiated; Moorish slaves, Amneris’ attendants, Temple dancers, prisoners of war, et al., are all laundry-day white with the occasional black face and body spotted in), there are no identities, no positions or attitudes related to those distinctions left to play.^(I) The dances, so deliciously and precisely written to delineate those identities and positions, are especially penalized, and irrespective of the choreographic choices (by Oleg Glushov, who has my sympathies), they become little more than anonymous jigglings.