Heyward wraps Baltimore Symphony season with “Aida” to launch Verdi project
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra closed its season with a concert performance of Verdi’s Aida Sunday at the Music Center at Strathmore. Photo: C. Downey/WCR
Jonathon Heyward ended his second season as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Sunday afternoon with a concert opera. Verdi’s Aida, heard at its second performance in the Music Center at Strathmore, was the maiden concert of the conductor’s Verdi opera initiative. At the end of this season and the next three, Heyward has planned to lead a concert performance of a Verdi opera.
This inaugural event proved a major success, largely due to the blockbuster casting of the four leads. Soprano Angel Blue, who sang the title role at the Metropolitan Opera earlier this season, lit up the stage as the enslaved Ethiopian princess. Her top range had the needed power to blast above the orchestra and amassed chorus. Her shimmering pianissimo stood out for its exquisite control, especially in the “Numi, pietà” section of “Ritorna vincitor” and the aria “O patria mia,” in dialogue with forlorn oboe solos from BSO principal Katherine Needleman.
Limmie Pulliam made his Met debut in 2022 as Radamès, the Egyptian general who loves Aida. The American tenor has spoken of how being an “artist of size” (his words) limited his career options in the new world of video simulcasts. Stage presence issues aside, Pulliam gave an incendiary performance of one of Verdi’s most demanding tenor roles. His “Celeste Aida,” noteworthy more for its sheer force than its delicacy, set the tone for an intense rendition of the character’s punishing series of solos and duets, finally mollifying to dulcet sweetness in the moving tomb duet with Blue in Act IV (“O terra addio”).
As Amneris, the pharaoh’s vengeful daughter, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton matched both Blue and Pulliam in power, with a molten chest voice into the basement, enabling her to snap in fury, and some blazing top notes. Most striking about her interpretation of the role was the character’s vulnerability, made possible through her soft-pedaling of Amneris’s vicious side. Her Amneris was still spiteful, but one understood her jealousy and outrage more.
Baritone Reginald Smith, Jr. provided more than enough angry rage in his potent turn as Amonasro, Aida’s royal father. His duet with Aida, where he invokes Aida’s mother cursing her and disowns her if she will not betray Radamès, has rarely crackled with so much bitter energy.
Bass Mark S. Doss lacked the needed wattage in the bass range as the high priest, Ramfis. The decision to have him at the front of the orchestra while he sang, inaudibly, with the quiet male chorus in Act I was a questionable choice by stage director Marcus Shields. Bass Matthew Anchel displayed an oddly swallowed tone as the Pharaoh, while both the Messenger of Jonathan Pierce Rhodes and the High Priestess of Amber Monroe made solid impressions vocally.
The Washington Chorus, under the direction of Eugene Rogers and placed in the balconies above the stage, produced an especially robust sound on the male side. The female choruses, like the overall choral sound at the largest climaxes, did not reach a crushing fortissimo, at least by comparison to the much lamented Maryland Lyric Opera’s bombastic choral scenes heard in years past at Strathmore.
While not a newcomer to conducting opera, Heyward sometimes had trouble coordinating his singers, who were standing behind him, and the orchestra. Verdi’s music requires an effortless sense of rubato to bring the score to life, the kind of detail that felt overlooked throughout the evening. The playing of the BSO, while remaining at a high level, also suffered from a few uncertainties, like a stray entrance from the violins in the quiet opening bars of Act I.
Highlights on the instrumental side included the gleaming, heraldic sound of four off-stage trumpeters in the opera’s most famous piece, the Triumphal March. Positioned antiphonally on opposing side balconies, their four long instruments (known as Aida trumpets) provided a regal air. Heyward chose not to cut the ballet music, although much of it awkwardly accompanied Barton’s Amneris pacing while playing “He loves me, he loves me not” with a flower.
Concertmaster Jonathan Carney—who will appear on a limited performance schedule as his retirement approaches at the end of the 2026-2027 season—was spelled at the concerts by Jun Iwasaki, concertmaster of the Kansas City Symphony. A reduced number of violins adorned the affecting conclusion of the opera, when Aida and Radamès are buried alive together, rendered to glowing effect in the final bars.
The BSO’s 2025-2026 subscription season begins September 26, concluding with a concert performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto June 12 and 14, 2026. bsomusic.org
