THE EVENING STANDART

Dinner suit joins shell suit for Aida

Oparama Aida at London’s Earls Court

THEY called it opera for the masses and gave it a big, brash presentation with champagne in plastic glasses and a state-of-the-art sound system.
Courtesy of Operama and promoter Harvey Goldsmith, who brought Live Aid and Pavarotti in the Park to London, the modem spectacular that is Verdi’s Aida united dinner suit and shell suit for the first in a planned series of “super” operas at Earls Court. The £3 million spectacular has already played to sell-out crowds in Spain, Holland, Switzerland and Portugal and.
It was then London’s turn to host the first of three nights of unashamed populist operatics. But the evening was tinged with sad-ness for Aida conductor and creator Giuseppe Raffa. He played on despite his mother’s death on the eve of the concerts.
Aida is blockbuster opera and this production is no exception. Earls Court may not have the pyramids or the live animals of other productions, but it does boast a cast of 600, including 500 extras recruited from an advertisement in the Standard.