The set (note the singular) is skinflint monumental. The look isn’t bad, but it applies to only one or two of the opera’s six scenes. Especially ill-served are Act II, Scene 1 (Amneris’ apartments) and Act 3 (the Nile Scene). The former is usually a shallow set, to facilitate a quick change to the Triumphal Scene. But it needs some feel of the boudoir, where Amneris, served by her slaves, is finishing her pre-Triumph toilette. The traditional tableau of a reclining Princess, thrice voicing her sensuous, down-winding phrases of longing (“Ah come, my love, intoxicate me, gladden my heart!”, to put it literally) between episodes of attirement and a dance of Moorish slaves, is hard to forego in some form. Here, everyone stands about in front of a drop barely upstage from the apron, and at the appointed time the gleamingly white girls do such jiggling as they can in very close quarters. “Semi-staged,” would be the correct advertisement. As for the Nile Scene, it takes place indoors, in the same confines as the Judgement Scene that follows it, rendering the exquisite musical atmosphere (and words being sung) useless and depriving us of the sense of open-air release from the oppressive hierarchical spaces and groupings of the first two acts.

Mayer’s staging is, I guess we could say, consistent with his “concept.” The scenes are history museum dioramas, into which figures are placed. We, the viewers, need not even shuffle from one glassed-in set-up to another, because all the positionings and movements occur in the same one, with only occasional changes in the accompanying contextualization plaques (consult your program) to tell us where we are now. The positional shiftings and criss-crossings are not actions dictated by the interchanges among the figures. They are for visual purposes only, and have no dramatic or emotional value. If one of the figures squirms to momentary life, it is quickly removed from the situation that threatens such an alarming development. Every so often, all the figures face front in a direct-address, presentational line, dropping any pretense of relating to one another. The advantage of this approach is a mechanical neatness: figures can be replaced for years to come by any of the museum’s staff, who have only to consult their binders and have done with the job. The disadvantage is that nothing of importance happens. But that’s our problem, not the staff’s.

The other part of the framework, the part we hope can drag us by the ear past all this and into the picture itself, rests with the conductor and his orchestra. There’s discouragingly little to be said. Aida is one of the four canonical operas the Met’s Music Director is involved with this season (three of the four he shares with other conductors; only Frau ohne Schatten has seen him in charge for the duration of its relatively brief run), and he seems to have dedicated a minimum of artistic heart-and-brain work to it. That the score would emerge with the same lightness of weight that has marked his treatment of Don Carlo(s) was not surprising. But it should be possible to craft an Aida Lite that still has dramatic, or at least theatrical, qualities—vivacity, singiness, sharpness of attack. This one sounded like the symphony orchestra’s annual summer pops concert (and was received as such by the jouncy lady sitting next to me). The playing had a punch-the-clock casualness that barely preserved the company’s blameless pit-pro routine. I persist in believing that the Met orchestra has a lot more to offer than this. The chorus sang in good balance and with fair amplitude, without quite blowing us away.