Opéra Bastille — Paris’s second opera house and a 1989 state-of-the-art building with superb acoustics — is literally crumbling. The stage and roof are in disrepair, a tarpaulin now hangs beneath to prevent debris from falling, and dancers have refused to perform on the uneven floor. With renovation costs projected at over 400 million euros, debate has ignited over whether the house should be restored or demolished altogether.
Verdi’s Aida, composed for Cairo in 1871, is the grandest of grand operas: a spectacular fusion of music, pageantry, and dance.
This controversial Paris production marks Iranian photographer and filmmaker Shirin Neshat’s first venture into opera direction. Instead of the familiar Egyptian grandeur, she confines the vast Bastille stage within a stark white revolving cube. Onto this structure she projects films of contemporary soldiers, veiled women, battlefields, violence, and portraits inscribed with Persian script.
The production premiered in Salzburg in 2017, where Riccardo Muti refused to allow the video projections to intrude upon Verdi’s score. In Paris, however, the videos are omnipresent.
Neshat’s concept reframes the opera as a political statement on Iranian oppression — but in doing so, she sacrifices the integrity of Verdi’s music, the singers, and the drama. The videos, constantly displaying images of suffering and violence, quickly become repetitive and distracting. Footage of deserts, seas, or women striking the ground during major arias draws attention away from the soloists, who are dwarfed by the projections. Three processions of masked figures in slow motion, silently crossing the stage, elongate scene changes by fifteen minutes and interrupt the musical flow. Audience members, visibly restless, were soon scrolling through their phones.
The Act II ballet is replaced by a film depicting beaten and raped captives, while soldiers harass Amneris and her servants — a staging that directly contradicts the music. The famous Triumphal March, traditionally a visual and musical highlight, is reduced to static tableaux beneath violent imagery, drained of its splendour and dance.
The temple scene, mercifully free of projections, works well despite the static direction: the cube opens, ornaments descend, and the Priestess sings onstage — a dramatic improvement.
Neshat portrays Radames as a brutal warrior who commits human sacrifice — a distortion of Verdi’s conception of him as loyal and passionate. Having freed the Ethiopian prisoners, this Radames then oversees their execution, an absurd twist that destroys narrative logic. The result is a production drained of emotional coherence.
Visually static, dramatically inert, it relies entirely on its singers — who fortunately redeem it. The chorus sings magnificently but stands immobile, frozen in tableaux. Soloists deliver their arias at opposite ends of the stage, with little interaction even in the final tomb scene.
Piotr Beczała, in radiant voice, gives a commanding performance as Radames, one of opera’s most demanding tenor roles. He opens with “Celeste Aida” — a test of control and lyricism sung before any chance to warm up — and triumphs with finesse, perfect phrasing, and burnished tone. Tragically, his artistry is constantly undermined by intrusive videos, reducing him to a backdrop for projections.
Spanish soprano Saioa Hernández (Aida) offers a refined performance constrained by static direction. She may lack the full vocal amplitude of traditional Aidas, yet her arias reveal a creamy tone and expressive phrasing. Unfortunately, “O patria mia” is accompanied by irrelevant videos of sand and sea, pulling focus from her singing.
Swiss mezzo Ève-Maud Hubeaux (Amneris) struggles to project in the lower register but shines in the trial scene, where her vocal intensity and dramatic intelligence come to the fore. Russian baritone Roman Burdenko (Amonasro) makes Aida’s father a bullying presence, though his voice is impressive.
Among the basses, Krzysztof Bączyk (the King) and Alexander Köpeczi (Ramfis) add welcome authority and sonorous depth to the ensembles. Margarita Polonskaya (Priestess) and Manase Latu (Messenger) make fine contributions in their smaller roles.
While it is commendable that Neshat wishes to highlight the brutality of fanaticism, she does so at the expense of Verdi’s opera. The result is an overbearing political installation that smothers the music and sacrifices theatrical cohesion. In the end, the message overwhelms the masterpiece — a distortion too far.
Aida – Opera in Four Acts
Music: Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)
Libretto: Antonio Ghislanzoni, after Auguste Mariette
Conductor: Michele Mariotti
Director: Shirin Neshat
Cast includes: Piotr Beczała, Saioa Hernández, Ève-Maud Hubeaux, Roman Burdenko, Krzysztof Bączyk, Alexander Köpeczi, Margarita Polonskaya, Manase Latu
Set and Costume Design: Christian Schmidt
Production created for Salzburg Festival; coproduction with Teatro Liceu, Barcelona
First performance: Cairo, Khedivial Opera House, 24 December 1871
Run: 24 September – 4 November 2025
Running time: 3h 25m (with interval)
Photo credit: Bernd Uhlig