AIDA @the Royal Opera House

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2016 - Aida Revival Madrid Opera House 

2013- Aida Revival Valencia Opera House 

2013- Aida Revival Oslo Opera House

2012 - Aida Revival The Royal Opera House 

2010 - Aida The Royal Opera House

 

Director: David McVicar

Set design: Jean-Marc Puissant

Costume designs: Moritz Junge

Lighting: Jennifer Tipton

Choreography: Fin Walker

Martial arts: David Greeves

Associate director: Leah Hausman

 

 

'David McVicar's darkly primitivist Aida was a necessary antidote to the whole tedious tradition of sub-De Mille spectacle in this piece.

 

The cleverest thing about his staging - and I cannot for the life of me work out why it was greeted with such derision on its first outing - is that it honours the operatic grandiosity of Verdi's camply picturesque Egypt but feeds big-time on the pagan rituals and inter-ethnic barbarity. The celebrated "Triumphal Scene" is played out under a canopy of mutilated corpses hanging like so many butchered carcasses in an abattoir; the "decorative" ballets (brilliant choreography here from Fin Walker) take on an almost comical eroticism or high-testosterone machismo with still sweaty and bloodied swordsmen grunting through their slice and dice techniques'. Independent Edward Seckerson

 

Fin Walker was responsible for the choreography throughout the production, including the duet work with the dancers and martial artists. David Greeves was responsible for the martial arts movement. 

 

 

 

'Watch the final preparations for the battle dance spectacular for the Triumphal March in Verdi's Aida. Fifteen male martial artists, nine female contemporary dancers go through their paces under the direction of choreographers Fin Walker and David Greeves.'