Milan's famed La Scala opera house opens its new season on Thursday with a production of Verdi's Aida that director Franco Zeffirelli hopes will re-establish Italy's supremacy in the art of opera.
Zeffirelli is calling his fifth version of the grandiose Nile opera the "Aida of Aidas" and has promised that it will go down in the history of the opera house where it had its Italian premiere in 1872.
Media reports excitedly note that 480 rich costumes have been stitched together and some 200 kilos of gold dust were used to create the splendid mask of Tutenkhamun which dominates the stage throughout.
"It will be a wonderful spectacle, produced with Italian pride," the 83-year-old veteran director of stage, opera and film said.
Zeffirelli, who won an Oscar for his 1968 film version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, claims his new Aida will be a celebration of the Italian way of doing things.
"We have to take back our primacy in opera," he said, referring disparagingly to recent opera productions in Northern Europe which attempted to modernise the genre.
These were "criminal manipulations," he said.
The Aida which will open La Scala's season on Thursday has been designed to "defend" what Zeffirelli sees as a central part of the country's cultural heritage and to "show young people what can be done".
The melodramatic and exotic Aida story offers him an ideal vehicle for his mission.
Aida, an Ethiopian princess, is captured and brought into slavery in Egypt. A military commander, Radames, struggles to choose between his love for her and his loyalty to the Pharaoh. In the end Radames and Aida are buried alive, a fate they accept willingly.
The opera, with its tradition of extravagant sets and stagecraft, offers ample scope for Zeffirelli to put his skills to work and he clearly relished the challenge.
"I'm a great stage designer," he said after watching the last dress rehearsal in which everything apparently came together to his satisfaction.
Violeta Urmano, the Lithuanian-born soprano who will take the role of Aida, praised Zeffirelli for his controlled direction during the last fraught few days of rehearsals.
"He shouted a bit but he wasn't nasty. I've been in productions where the directors were crazy," she said.
TRUMPET PLAYERS IN SKY.
In terms of blockbuster grandeur, the triumphant return of the hero Radames at the end of the second act is expected to be a highlight. There will be about 350 singers, choir members, dancers and extras on stage together.
Thanks to Zeffirelli, eight trumpet players will be lowered from the sky to blast the notes of the triumphant victory march from midair.
Orchestra conductor Riccardo Chailly, referring to the production's lavishness as well as some of the more surreal scenes, has said it will be "a dream".
Aida, which is usually seen as Giuseppe Verdi's greatest opera, has not been seen at La Scala for 21 years. This fact, along with curiosity to see what Zeffirelli has done with it, means tickets are almost impossible to obtain.
Apart from the 140 tickets for the Circle which will go on sale at the last minute, all seats for the 11 performances this month were snapped up within 24 hours of them becoming available.
Among the VIP audience members on opening night will be Italian Premier Romano Prodi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Al Naimi, the French minister of culture Renaud Domedieu de Vabres and actor Rupert Everett.
After the performance 750 invitees will go to Milan's Palazzo Reale for a celebratory banquet requiring the combined efforts of 40 cooks and 120 waiters.
Zeffirelli's Aida is expected to be taken abroad after its run in Milan, possibly playing in Israel, Japan and China among other destinations.
