Aida on Lake Constance
Aida opera on Lake Constance
What a wonderful evening at the floating stage in Bregenz. Although I’m not really into operas, a performance on the lakeside stage in Bregenz Austria is definitely something special. The trick is to pick the right day and I was lucky: it was a beautiful late summer evening with a clean sky, a nice setting sun and the illuminated Lindau island skyline as a backdrop.
Opera’s stories are usually straight forward: human nature presented in a focused and dramatic way. However, the sophisticated dynamic stage setup, which is basically the Statue of Liberty broken into pieces, mixed with the excellent music from the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra makes this a spectacular and memorable experience. Flying ships, elephants carrying prisoners in orange overalls (as seen on TV?), platforms emerging out of the water, cranes moving parts around the stage. It’s a constantly changing stage backdrop. Wait a minute: cranes? Yes! Two huge ordinary yellow-painted construction cranes were setup, one on each side of the stage. At first I thought they are already preparing to dismount the stage because yesterday was this year’s last performance. But Aida will be continued in summer 2010!
The cranes look misplaced at first, but then I noticed the whole stage is a construction site: reconstructing the broken Statue of Liberty – the symbol of freedom and liberty? Miss Liberty’s face in two pieces! The Declaration of Independence and the torch drowned in Lake Constance! The scene reminded me of the terrifying scene from the movie “Planet of the Apes”: by discovering the broken Statue of Liberty they finally realize that it’s not some foreign planet but Planet Earth which is now ruled by apes.
Miss Liberty's face in pieces
Aida is an old tragic love story situated on the River Nile in the middle of a war between Egypt and Ethiopia, but director Graham Vick, artistic director David Pountney and stage designer Paul Brown have incorporated modern aspects that may remind us of recent US history.
So, don’t miss it next year and remember to pick the right day.