Aida & the Ayatollahs: Revival at the Paris Opera
The Paris Opera staged a revival of Aida this fall, bringing back a 2017 production from the Salzburg Festival. This version, crafted by Iranian visual artist, photographer, and filmmaker Shirin Neshat, surprised many who had seen it previously. It was originally created for the star soprano Anna Netrebko’s debut as Aida, with direction by Riccardo Muti.
Neshat, with no prior opera directing experience, faced a challenging debut. Film elements featured prominently, especially black-and-white footage of migrants—mainly women in somber attire near the sea. These sequences sometimes felt tentative and somewhat peripheral to the opera's core drama.
The production aligned with Muti’s preference against radical staging, but Neshat’s approach to the principals—mostly standing and singing—felt outdated. After Salzburg revived the production in 2022 with reported changes, the Paris Opera’s version allowed Neshat, a vocal advocate for women’s rights, to deepen her interpretation.
“Parallels between the opera’s priests—decked out with flowing, ayatollah-style beards—and the hardline theocrats of her estranged country made the opera’s violence more pronounced.”
This connection highlighted the opera’s themes of violence and authoritarianism, reflecting Neshat’s perspective on her homeland’s religious leadership.
Summary
This revival of Aida highlighted Shirin Neshat’s unique vision, blending film and opera to emphasize political and social themes linked to her background.