A Great Joy

On 11 November 2016, San Francisco Opera presented Giuseppe Verdi's grand opera Aida in a dark-hued but visually interesting production by Francesca Zambello. Michael Yeargan's sets, which are based on designs by RETNA (Marquis Duriel Lewis), combined hieroglyphics and street art with elements of Arabic and Hebrew calligraphy. Many of the props, standards for parades, and ceremonial swords were topped with hieroglyphic cutouts. RETNA and Yeargan presented the audience with a fascinating mélange of scripts, but their images were not as bright and colorful as those seen in more traditional Aidas of the past...