Review

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Verdian

Passions,

Persian

Shadows:

Shirin

Neshat’s

Aida

at

Paris

Opera

sense of expectation hung over the Opéra Bastille before the curtain rose for the Sept. 24 opening night of Verdi’s Aida. The foyer murmured with anticipation, its audience drawn as much to Shirin Neshat’s controversial staging as to what promised to be an exceptional performance of Verdi’s masterpiece.

If still little known in the opera world, in the art world, this affable, diminutive figure with striking coal-black eyes is a star. Her black-and-white calligraphed portraits, video installations, and films have been praised and presented in prestigious collections internationally for three decades. No wonder that among those present were gallerist Thaddaeus Ropac, American artist Robert Longo, and Anselm Kiefer, who premiered his own scorched earth opera Am Anfang on this stage in 2008.

As soon as the lights dimmed, the atmosphere settled into focused anticipation. The orchestra tuned, and Italian conductor and Verdi specialist Michele Mariotti mounted the podium. Over the next three hours we witnessed less a “new production” than a culmination—Neshat’s Salzburg Aidas from 2017 and 2022 pared to an edge and intensified to a point of no return.