[NEohioPAL] Review of "Aida" at Karamu

[Bob Abelman]

Karamu’s ‘Aida’ is so good it earns a standing ovation at intermission



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

  

Critics whose beat is Broadway were not kind to “Aida,” the Giuseppe Verdi/Antonio Ghislanzoni 19th-century opera-turned-Elton John/Tim Rice pop musical, when the show opened in 2000.



The least subtle but most representative commentary came from The New York Times, which was none-too-pleased with this Disney-produced re-telling of an enslaved Nubian princess who falls in love with a conquering Egyptian captain named Radames, who is betrothed to Amneris, the Pharaoh’s daughter. 



“The new Disney cartoon pretending to be a Broadway musical,” it states, “seems stranded in its own candy-colored limbo, thrashing between childish silliness and civic preachiness, between campy spoof and tragic tear-jerker, between two and three dimensions.”



It goes on to note that Elton John’s score “has all the memory-grabbing adhesiveness of unchewed gum” and that the show’s “more exalted sentiments, about destiny and duty, are reserved for Mr. Rice's rather perfunctory lyrics.”



And yet, “Aida” earned five Tony Awards and played to packed houses for 1,852 performances across 54 months. What audiences discovered and critics missed is on display in the absolutely lovely production being performed at Karamu.



For more of this review, go to:  www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/
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