War Horse: Classic ‘Aida’ at Met Opera takes a bowNEW YORKAfter more than 260 performances, the Metropolitan Opera this week retired its “Aida” staging, phasing out one of the company’s last remaining holdovers from the last century. For years, white singers playing Aida and other characters routinely used paint to darken their skin, a practice that the Met has completely ended only in the last decade. Core works in the opera repertoire, including Aida, have also been criticized for employing tropes about distant lands. Thursday’s audience included longtime Met attendee August Ventura, who went to bid a bittersweet goodbye to the show. He described the Met’s record with recent productions as mixed, adding “I wish them well and I wish the art form well.”

Source: Ethiopian News May 22, 2023 04:42 UTC