Amenemhat ii at the met opera

As the fedora-hatted archaeologist was lowered into the Egyptian temple to begin the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of Verdi’s Aida Tuesday night, he took a tumble while disengaging from his rope. 

That was only the first misstep in a new production that already had the misfortune to follow a legend, and then came up with few reasons to do so.

For 36 years, Sonja Frisell’s mounting of Aida at the Metropolitan Opera, with its monumental Pharaonic sets by Gianni Quaranta and brigades of supernumeraries, had been a major local attraction, embodying “New York spectacular” as surely as the Chrysler Building or the Rockettes.

As the decades went on, the question arose whether this version of Aida had become a timeless classic or had overstayed its welcome.

Plans for a change were laid as early as 2019, but a pandemic intervened. The new production by Michael Mayer just made it under the wire to open in the waning minutes of 2024.

Of course, New Year’s Eve symbol