Review Roundup: AIDA Directed by Michael Mayer at the Metropolitan Opera

After being postponed due to the pandemic in the 2020-21 season, The Met's new production of the opera Aida finally opened as part of the 2024/2025 season with a completely new staging, directed by Michael Mayer. Mayer most recently directed Swept Away on Broadway, with other recent credits including Funny Girl, A Beautiful Noise, Little Shop of Horrors, and many more.

Soprano Angel Blue is making her long-awaited Met role debut as the Ethiopian princess torn between love and country, one of opera’s defining roles. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium for the New Year’s Eve premiere of Michael Mayer’s spectacular new staging, which brings audiences inside the towering pyramids and gilded tombs of ancient Egypt with intricate projections and dazzling animations.

Mezzo-soprano Judit Kutasi, following her 2024 debut in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, is Aida’s Egyptian rival Amneris, sharing the role with Elīna Garanča, who returns to the Met for the first time since 2020. Leading tenors Piotr Beczała and Brian Jagde alternate as the soldier Radamès, who completes the greatest love triangle in the repertory.

The cast also features baritones Quinn Kelsey, Amartuvshin Enkhbat, and Roman Burdenko as Amonasro and basses Dmitry Belosselskiy, Alexander Vinogradov, and Morris Robinson as Ramfis. Christina Nilsson makes her Met debut in the title role in March, and Alexander Soddy shares conducting duties.

Performances continue through May 9. Read the reviews below!

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Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times: Mostly, though, Mayer’s “Aida” is blandly old-fashioned, without real poetry, theatricality or fun. His frame lends itself to this: If the opera is being depicted as an appropriative fantasy, the point is only furthered if it’s stagy and stale.

David Wright, New York Classical Review: Kutasi had all too vulnerable a target in Angel Blue, in her Met role debut as Aida. The dynamic between princess and princess-as-slave is hard enough to navigate dramatically without a mismatch of voices, and Blue, justly admired for the warmthand lyricism of her Bess and multiple roles in Fire Shut Up in My Bones, never found the regal presence that makes Aida’s demise so affecting. But when needed, she could summon both vocal power and floating high pianissimo, and she delivered her big soliloquies “Ritorna vincitor!” and “O patria mia” confidently and without affectation.

David Salazar, OperaWire: Piotr Beczala’s night was nothing short of unfortunate ... it was clear that the Polish tenor was not in his best voice.  It’s especially disheartening considering that Angel Blue gave a beautiful interpretation of Aida, both vocally and with her physical embodiment of the character.

Kevin Ng, The Times: But the main reason to catch this production is Angel Blue ... Her first Aida at the Met shows that the role will surely become a calling card for her. She has the ideal voice for the part, with sufficient power to ride the big ensembles, but is also capable of beautifully finessed phrasing. She’s at her best in her first aria, full of sumptuous tone and urgent phrasing. It’s almost enough to make you forget the distracting light show going on behind her.

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