Somtow digs deeper for Singapore ‘Aida’

Spanish tenor Israel Lozano, who debuted in Southeast Asia with “Madama Butterfly” nine years ago, will play Radames, and Mexican mezzo Grace Echauri will perform as Amneris, the vengeful Egyptian princess, while Nancy Yuen, artistic director of Singapore Lyric Opera, takes the title role. 
Yuen has been in more than a dozen roles with Opera Siam, including the title roles in “Mae Naak” and “Butterfly”, as Mimi in “La Boheme” and as the Empress in Somtow’s “Dan no Ura”.
“In a sense this feels like an Opera Siam production – except there’s a real budget and real preparation time,” Somtow says of “Aida”. “Singapore’s ‘Aida’ is budgeted at five times the cost of the average opera in Bangkok.”
Somtow says there are numerous differences in working in the two cities. 
“There’s a serious work ethic in Singapore. There’s a really heavy rehearsal schedule. And it gives the opportunity for the stage director, Covent Garden’s Andrew Sinclair, to delve really deeply into the characters and to come up with a quietly revolutionary interpretation of the opera.”
Somtow’s 2005 production of “Aida” in Bangkok was described as a revelation. “It is still one of the productions I am most proud of,” says Richard Harrell, the guest stage director from San Francisco Opera.
Instead of being set in Egypt, the production was given the look and feel of ancient Siam, at war with Burma, in the milieu of Suriyothai and Naresuan, giving the audience an interesting series of local metaphors.
In terms of look and feel, Singapore’s “Aida” is more traditional, in that it is set in Egypt. But in other ways it, too, is revolutionary. 
“After a five-minute conversation with Andrew Sinclair, we discovered, amazingly, that we were on the same page,” Somtow says.  
“We were both fatigued with the epic, monumental ‘Aidas’ we see frequently, and we could see another ‘Aida’ inside the spectacle – an intimate family tragedy of people caught up in a sweeping history they can’t control.”
Somtow’s take on the music digs deep under the crust of “epic splendour” to try to pull out Verdi’s “intimate drama”. 
He’s been working with Singapore Lyric Opera’s orchestra to bring out the music’s exotic, subtle colours. He’s removed dozens of “traditional” exaggerations that singers have overlaid onto Verdi’s score, and eschewed the monumentally slow tempi of some interpreters for a much more exciting pace.  
Check out the programme at Sistic.com.sg.