Aida at the Met

I felt quite privileged on Wednesday night to go to the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. I was the guest of a friend (who for his own political reasons wishes to remain unidentified), who had been given amazing Grand Tier tickets for free. We went to see Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida, which had its premiere in Cairo on December 24, 1871. The opera was fantastic. I had seen Aida in the past on television, but this was the first time I had seen it live. Although I'm not an active opera buff, I do enjoy going when I can, and Italian operas are of course the best (yes, I'm biased). I've seen live both Tosca (my favorite libretto) and La Traviata (possibly my favorite musical score) a number of times. Aida is the story of the pseudonymous Ethiopian princess enslaved to the Egyptian princess Amneris, both of whom are in love with the Egyptian general Radamès, although he is in love only with Aida. Of course there love is doomed and there's a tragic ending. For our performance, Aida was performed by soprano Liudmyla Monasyrska, and she did a truly magnificent job. She sang beautifully, and I was entranced by two of her arias. The other performers were quite good, although none of them stood out for me as well as the soprano. The orchestra was aptly conducted by Fabio Luisi, but I found the tuba player a bit too loud at times, to the point that he overpowered the singers. The famous triumphal march scene was spectacular, however, and the ballet sequences well choreographed. I realized that the triumphal march was scored by Verdi so that it could be repeated again and again to accommodate the size of the actual parade on stage. In some performances, an entire retinue of animals including elephants and giraffes have been included, extending the musical sequence a great deal, but in this performance they kept it to a minimum. It's a shame actually because it is such beautiful music, and believe me when I tell you that you know this music and love it as well. (Here's a YouTube video of the scene as performed in the past at the Met Opera.) I did find it strange to realize afterwards that all the main singers in the performance were from former Soviet countries (Ukraine, Russia, Georgia), which I think says much about the globalism of the arts in the new millennium.

On a personal note, it was interesting to go back to the Met Opera the other night (image at right was the view from our seats!), because I had not been to that theater since my very first live opera experience...30 years ago! Zio PL had gotten free tickets, and since Zia FL couldn't go, he took me. I remember my parents driving me into the City where we met him at Lincoln Center. We saw Rigoletto from one of the tiers...and I actually sat next to Mia Farrow and Woody Allen (they left during intermission). It was an amazing experience overall, but one I could hardly share with classmates the next day as they all thought it was weird that I would even want to go to an opera. In retrospect, it was definitely one of those rewarding experiences that I have cherished my whole life. I just hope it's not another 30 years before I go back there again!

Pharaoh Arrives

Here in NYC, the other day we felt the tremors of the earthquake that hit Virginia (the floor shifted under me for about 6 seconds while I was at my desk at work), and now we're getting ready for the possibility that Hurricane Irene will strike over the weekend. Not your typical NYC week for sure! But, interestingly, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, something else rather unusual took place recently: they installed a 10-foot pharaoh in the Great Hall! The Aegyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz has loaned the Met for the next decade a colossal statue of Pharaoh Amenemhat II. You can read all about the loan and pharaoh on the Met's website. For your entertainment, here's an official Met video showing the installation of the statue. You see some great shots of the museum and it's fascinating to see them upwrap and erect the pharaoh using a crane. Enjoy!

King Tut

While I was eating dinner this evening, I watched the documentary Tut's Treasures on the National Geographic Channel. I've always had a passion for ancient Egyptian culture, so this made for interesting dining entertainment. The documentaries on ancient cultures that you often see on this channel, Discovery, TLC, etc. are often hyped to make you feel as if the episode has information that shocks you and that you cannot live without, like "Tonight! The Truth Behind How King Tut, The Boy King, Died. Was It Murder? Was It An Accident? What Can Today's Forensic Experts Tell Us? Come Excavate The Truth As We Solve This Mystery Three Thousand Five Hundred Years In The Making!" It's unfortunate that they always have to exaggerate the effect of these documentaries, but I imagine they feel like average Joe Plumber would never watch it otherwise. (Then again, why do they care if Joe Plumber watches? When the heck is he ever going to run off to Egypt or see an Egyptian exhibition at a museum?) All the hype aside, the episode was actually quite interesting. Just about everyone has heard of King Tut. The discovery of his tomb rich in treasures by Howard Carter in 1922 was one of the most spectacular moments in Egyptology and archaeology. The image you see here is Tut's gold death mask in the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. They have many examples of Tut's treasures online, so it's worth taking a look. The 1970s grand tour of artifacts from his tomb was a tremendous popular success, and for the past couple of years there has been a new (and controversial) version of the same tour traveling around the globe. Tutankhamen was the son of Akhenaten, the radical pharaoh who altered the traditional polytheistic culture into what some call a monotheistic culture, with the worship of a single chief deity, Aten the sun. Akhenaten was married to the world-famous Nefertiti, and their daughter Ankhsenamen was married to Tutankhamen. The boy came to the throne at the age of nine, but he was dead by eighteen. This documentary used CT scanning on his skeletal remains in combination with other new investigations to determine that, contrary to what people have believed for the past few decades, Tut was a healthy adolescent and he was not assassinated. It appears he probably died from an infection after breaking his leg from a chariot accident while hunting (or so they claim). The premise behind the entire episode was that the current Earl of Carnarvon, the great-grandson of the fourth earl who discovered the tomb with Carter, was returning to Egypt to seek out new answers on the life and death of Tut. Of course the ubiquitous Zahi Hawass, Egypt's Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, was in the documentary and he was able to express the final opinion as to how Tut died. In case you weren't aware of this, there isn't a single documentary or book about ancient Egypt these days that does not include Zahi Hawass. You have to check out his website to see what I mean. He is the celebrity face of Egyptology.