The Arts in NYC Fall 2012

Aida fell short of my expectations. 🙁 It really saddens me to say that I did not enjoy “Aida” as much as I had thought I would. After looking forward to it for many weeks, especially after the class we had with Jake, I was rather let down. It might have been because of the seats…but I am sure that wasn’t the main problem.

In case you were wondering, I did not fall asleep; So, it’s safe to say that it wasn’t my lack of attention that took away from the performance. I feel like I didn’t feel the emotions from the actors on stage as much as I did from the actors in the videos we saw online. This is usually not how it’s supposed to be though. Normally, I would think that seeing a live performance would be better than watching a video but the actors in “Aida” at the Met were really lack luster. Since I had binoculars, I could see the facial expressions of the actors at certain times and it felt like they weren’t giving it their best effort. It was either that, or the actors in the videos were just that much better than them. Either way, their performance was just missing the “umph” factor. In the last scene where Aida and Radames were stuck in the tomb, I was most dissapointed. My expectation was that they would be dramatic like I saw in some movies and even in the videos online. What I saw was an extremely anticlimactic ending and although I did applaud the actors at the end, I wasn’t too zealous about it and barely managed to bring my hands together. There just wasn’t enough emotion in that last part to lift me up.

I do think though, that the woman who played Amneris did a great job. I remember watching her in the last act crying in despair of her ruined love. That was definitely the highlight of the night. Even the New York Times agreed! haha. But in all seriousness she did stand out more for me than the two main characters and even the entire rest of the cast! Her performance was enough to get me to really notice her and feel the emotions that she was supposed to be channeling. Even though I didn’t really feel anything through most of the performance, I kind-of teared up when she was listening in on Radames’ death sentencing. Amneris definitely did a great job. I also enjoyed the sets and the movement they had. It was amazing to see an entire background shift upwards into the cieling or down in to the ground. I hadn’t ever seen something like that prior to the night at the opera and it was really cool. The horses in the opera were also really interesting because they were Live and also restless which made them quite funny.

Aside from the actual performance I feel like the Metropolitan Opera was only just okay. Yes, the chandelier was pretty and they had pretty nice water fountains but the rest of the decor was so much less than I had expected. The walls were very bare and the dress displays were so few that I was done viewing them in a heartbeat. It might have been because I was expecting too much but it was kinda sad that the opera was so different from my expectations.

Overall, The opera was nice but not really. I’m not sure if I would go back…maybe if I was really interested in another opera, and i had the money. But, without help from an expert like Professor Jacob Cohen, that isn’t very likely.

~Jackie