A dramatically different 'Aida'

[Disney Theatrical Productions photos] Aida, with a pop-rock score by Elton John and Tim Rice, is loosely adapted from the Verdi opera set in ancient Egypt.

By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 3, 2003

Neither fish nor fowl, but savored nonetheless by fans, the Elton John/Tim Rice musical opens Tuesday in Tampa.

It's not Verdi's Aida. It's Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida, and any resemblance to the opera is mainly in the story.

"There's not much Verdi left," said Robert Falls, director of the musical, which opens Tuesday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. "Certainly none in the music. Tim and Elton had no desire to quote or refer to the Verdi score. What interested them was the dynamics, the love triangle and the setting."

Aida, in both the Verdi and John/Rice versions, is pure melodrama: Radames, commander of the ancient Egyptian army, falls in love with a captive Nubian princess, Aida, who is the handmaiden of Radames' betrothed, Princess Amneris. Romantic and military complications ensue.

"I think Verdi actually cheats a lot," Falls said. "He sort of opens the opera with Aida coming out and saying, 'Boy, I've got this problem. I'm the handmaiden to this princess and I'm in love with her betrothed and he's in love with me. What am I going to do?'

"What we ask in our piece is how did that happen, how did the captive become in love with the captor? We take the story back considerably. Basically, our first act takes us up to the first act of the Verdi."

Falls, artistic director of Chicago's Goodman Theatre, is one director of musical theater who knows what he's talking about when it comes to opera. He staged Carlisle Floyd's Susannah for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and New York's Metropolitan Opera and has directed other operas, though none by Verdi.

Opera and musical theater would seem to be coming together. Not only does Aida, however nonoperatic it is, continue on Broadway almost three years after opening, but it has been joined by Baz Luhrmann's production of Puccini's La Boheme, one of the hits of the current season.

"I think the barriers have broken down in such a way that you can have a hit like Aida next to a hit like La Boheme next to a hit like Movin' Out by Twyla Tharp and Billy Joel," Falls said. "What is a musical anymore is kind of up for grabs; it's rock, it's ballet, it's opera. You just try to make an exciting theater piece."

Initially, one of Falls' concerns about turning Aida into a pop-rock musical was the possible negative reaction of opera fans. Not to worry.

"What we discovered is that the worlds really don't match," he said. "Opera fans are opera fans and stay in the opera houses. Musical theater fans are a much bigger audience ultimately, and they don't know or care that much about opera. It might be 1 percent of 1 percent who are familiar with the opera Aida. As sad as that may be, I think it's the truth."

Falls took over direction of Aida after the Disney production had a disastrous tryout in Atlanta, where the central set piece, a pyramid, didn't work. He was given the task of rewriting the book and heading a new creative team, including scenic and costume designer Bob Crowley.

A crucial decision was to open the show in the present, with a man and woman meeting in a museum.

"It came out of the first design meeting Bob Crowley and I had," Falls said. "We were working on the piece all afternoon, and we decided to go up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to stroll through the Egyptian wing. While we were there, I was standing in front of a tomb that was under plexiglass, and I had this image . . ."

Falls digressed to explain his thinking. "One of the problems with the production in its original incarnation was that you just can't do ancient Egypt, that sort of Cleopatra costuming, makeup and hairdo. Because it's essentially a rock 'n' roll score, I needed to find a bridge from the 21st century to ancient Egypt.

Robert Falls, the musical’s director, doesn’t see much crossover between opera and musical theater. “Opera fans are opera fans and stay in the opera houses,” he said.

"I realized I could do that by starting the piece in modern dress, with a young man and a young woman, who are drawn to this tomb mysteriously. They look up at each other, and from that moment we kind of flash back to a prior life."

Aida is unorthodox because it doesn't open with a musical number.

"With any musical they often say that you've got to get it going in the first 10 minutes, that the way you open a musical is the key to it," Falls said. "Comedy Tonight, for example, is a classic opener; it tells you everything you need to know about A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. So does Tradition from Fiddler on the Roof.

"What's unusual about Aida is that it's the only musical I know that opens in utter and complete silence for about the first six or seven minutes. I can't think of another musical that does that. It's a musical that starts in silence and returns to silence."

Aida was John's second show for Disney, after The Lion King. Among fellow singer/songwriters such as Paul Simon, Randy Newman and Jimmy Buffett, he is the only one to enjoy success in musical theater.

"Not to put down others from the pop-rock world, but I think they've been more controlling in their vision of what they want to do in musical theater, and I think that's gotten them in trouble," Falls said.

"I think the real knack Elton has is that he's a tremendous collaborator. He always worked humbly and confidently as a team player. His real concern is the music, but he readily admitted that how it works in terms of stagecraft wasn't his expertise, so he listened to a choreographer, he listened to a musical director, he listened to a director, he listened to actors, and was really open."

Falls said John's next musical theater project is an adaptation of the movie Billy Elliot.

As for Falls, he is directing Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, with Brian Dennehy and Vanessa Redgrave, to open on Broadway in May. In 1999, he won a Tony Award for his direction of Death of a Salesman, starring Dennehy.

Falls, whose father lives in Sarasota, plans to attend performances of Aida in Tampa. It will give him a chance to see the show with a new principal in the cast, Micky Dolenz. The erstwhile Monkees drummer has just joined the tour as Zoser, father of Radames.

Casting Dolenz, whose previous stage roles include Vince Fontaine in Grease, is not a gimmick, Falls said.

"Micky's everything we ever wanted in this role: a 50-year-old rock 'n' roller who's got a tremendous set of pipes. Really, we grabbed him more because he was the best possible person for the role rather than the fact that he used to belong to a kind of famous singing group on television."

Lisa Brescia, center, plays the Egyptian princess Amneris and makes a fashion statement in My Strongest Suit.

Theater preview

Aida, the musical by Elton John and Tim Rice, opens Tuesday and runs through March 15 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Tickets: $24.25-$70.25. Call (813) 229-7827 or see www.tbpac.org.

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