Aida makes its debut on THIRTEEN’S Great Performances at the Met with soprano Violeta Urmana singing the title role for the first time with the company and mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick as Amneris, one of her most acclaimed signature roles. Heldentenor Johan Botha sings Radamès, a role for which he was acclaimed in the 2006 revival of the opera, joined by baritone Carlo Guelfi as Amonasro, bass Roberto Scandiuzzi as Ramfis, and bass Stefan Kocán, who makes his debut as the King. Italian maestro Daniele Gatti conducts Aida for the first time at the Met. It marks the return of the Italian maestro, who last appeared with the company in the 1994-95 season, when he made his debut with Madama Butterfly. Alexei Ratmansky, artist-in-residence with American Ballet Theatre and former artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, makes his Met debut creating new choreography for the Aida ballets, offering the finishing touch of “firsts” for the production.
Hosted by opera star Renée Fleming, Aida airs on THIRTEEN’S Great Performances at the Met on PBS on Sunday, January 31 at noon EST (check local listings).
Watch a preview:
Great Performances at the Met is a presentation of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG – one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.
Great Performances at the Met: Aida is the third of 10 productions airing this season during the 2009-2010 series. The performance is sung in Italian with English surtitles. The conductor is Paolo Carignani. The production is by Sonja Frisell; the set designer is Gianni Quaranta; Dada Saligeri created the costumes; the lighting designer is Gil Wechsler. Gary Halvorson directed for television.
Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers and PBS. Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home-builder®.
For the Met, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.
Looks exciting; can hardly wait to see it!
Why is it only showing that it’s airing on only a few pbs channels? I want to watch it so bad!
When will the Opera Auditions be shown on KCET Los Angeles?
When will the GP from the Met be airing on Chicago’s WTTW or the Indana station nearby? It seems like we have missed several operas last season. What is the problem that is happening to limit showings this last year?
Champagne/Urbana will show it on Jan. 31. WTTW always shows it JUST WHEN IT WANTS TO. BOO…HISS!!!
My wife and I saw this production of Aida at the Met in October and then back home at the HD Live Encore at the movie theater. This is a pretty amazing production. It will be worth your time to watch it on PBS!
Well, today is the 31 of January and no Aida is on. Can you tell me when it will be aired on Manhattan Cable channel 713. Thank you very much
PBS in San Diego is airing it now, but the listing is for Carosel..confusing.
Would love to be able to watch GP from the Met but watch PBS Spokane and.or Detroit, and have found it really difficult to locate dates, times, and …IF???
Am curious as to why?
What a splendid performance. Such great voices!
Aida was a noshow on Channel 13 PBS San Angelo, TX at 12:00pm Central Time.
Stunning. Can we buy a copy of the DVD anywhere anytime soon?
A recorded performance of this wonderful production has already been released on DVD by DG many years ago, with Placido Domingo as Radames and Aprile Millo in the title role. You can probably buy it through Amazon. It is so worth it!!
I was also waiting for it last Sunday, but then I looked at the brochure I am getting as a PBS subscriber. According to it, at least in my area (NY), it’ll be at noon on 1/14. This coming Sunday is repeat of “The Audition”, next Sunday is “Aida”. At least this is what I am counting on…
The singing was absolutely gorgeous. Thank you!
Absolutely spectacular! The main characters performance was outstanding; the sets and wardrobe exquisite; the number of actors involved was amazing. The entire production is a masterpiece of great magnitude. Bravo!
If it’s ever too dark and you can’t see anything onstage, Gil Wechsler did it! You’ve had others do operas that didn’t fail the “must see” requirement of stage lighting. Please let him retire.
Here in the wilds of West Texas, the MET production of Aida aired on Sunday, February 7th. Better late than never. It ironically coincided with the Super Bowl, but that didn’t bother me. I’d much rather sail down the Nile with Aida & Company than watch a bunch of bubbas scurrying after pigskin.
Aida is the pinnacle of grand opera, and is always such a pleasurable spectacle to watch that I have never disliked a performance (and I’ve seen many). This particular production by the MET isn’t one of my absolute favorites, but it will not disappoint. Paolo Carignany is a first-rate conductor,the singers were fantastic, the sets were excellent, and the costumes – - well, the costumes were adequate. I kept wondering, however, why all the green? Is ancient Egypt “Going Green”? Is Aida Irish? Are we in Oz? No big deal – just one of my quirks.
This is certainly a meaty production. “Meaty” in an artistically fulfilling sense – - and meaty because there wasn’t one singer who was under 250 pounds. Hey, sorry – another one of my quirks. Actually it was refreshing to see some non-anorexic singers for a change. It brought back fond melodic memories of many Wagnerian damsels…..
Violeta Urmana (Aida) gave a superb performance, with absolute purity and clarity of tone. Dolora Zajick (Amneris) and Johan Botha (Radames) were equally great. All in all, this is a wonderful production, well worth watching.
I blew it in my previous post. The conductor of Aida is Daniele Gatte, NOT Carignany. Sorry for the mistake!
Watched this production last night. It was beautiful, thank you so much for putting it on air.
I had the privlige of attending Leontyne Price’s final performance in January, 1984 at the MET as Aida. Is there a DVD available for that performance? The cast included Simon Estes and James McCracken
A gorgeous physical production with a ballet that stands out as the star of the evening, which is not a good thing when it comes to Verdi’s masterpiece. There was no fire here among the singers. Urmana is a fine singer, but their was no passion. The rest of the cast was good to poor. Amanasro was the worst I have ever heard in all the Aidas I have seen, and that is a considerable number. We seriously lack voices tht can sing Verdi as written. Watch the same produciton on DVD from some years back with Aprille Millo. THAT is what Aida should sound like.
Legendary Great Soprano Violeta URMANA, Fantastic Dolora and Botha ! I LOVE THIS PRODUCTION ! BRAVI
Magnificent sets and even better costuming. What a shame that nothing else went well with this opera. This is truly one of the great operas (a personal favorite of mine) but this version has no passion, no drama, and the performances were all 2nd rate. Why the Met would spend this kind of cash on production values and then put up a pedestrian version of this opera was beyond me.
Even the orchestra was lackluster.
A very generous three stars from me.
Your email THIRTEEN schedule for this week states AIDA on PBS Feb.25 2010 . Is it tomorrow, Thursday Aprl 1 2010 ?
No libretti at this site? Any good free online source for dual Italian to English Aida libretto?
It is difficult to find the listing of performances on the web, so one can inform others of the marvelous performancesl We are fortunate to have them broadcast every Sunday night at 9:30 PM in northern Wisconsin but I cannot find a listing for WTTW Chicago. Der Rosenkavlier was incredible 7/25/10.
is it possible to see this version of ‘aida’ on pbs or some dvd or whatever missed it if milwaukee , wi., carried it at all
man yhx…..albin ooera lover
Can’t they make a production of Aida with black people, therefore being historically correct about ancient Egypt. and Ethiopia. Even recent National Geographic productions about ancient Egypt have now no longer use European actors, because it is realized how important it is to modern people of African descent about their ancient ancestors in these great ancient civilizations that influenced Western culture.
I will mention that productions of Aida with whites appear to place it wrongfully during the civilization of Rameses (II)the Great , when it was obviously long before then. Apparently in the story itself that the reason how an Ethiopian princess could manage to keep her true identity secret was that Egyptians had to be as “black” as she and her people were ,and shared similar cultures although separate kingdoms.