"Aida": pop-rock melodrama in ancient Egypt

Forbidden love in ancient Egypt, set to music, is not just the province of Seattle Opera's upcoming August production of the Verdi classic "Aida."

It is also the subject of another "Aida" — the 2000 hit Broadway musical with a pop-rock score by Elton John and Tim Rice, now in its first local staging at Village Theatre.

A Disney-backed spectacle, the long-running Broadway "Aida" had a cleverly grandiose gaudiness, opulent even by Times Square and grand-opera standards.

The Issaquah staging, by Village artistic director Steve Tomkins, and Brian Yorkey, is less about knockout eye-candy. But the more muted sets and projections (contrived by Carey Wong and expertly lit by Tom Sturge) are varied and attractive, and certainly not run-of-the-Nile.

The Village has grown smoothly adept at packaging and delivering such large-cast, scenically complex crowd-pleasers to its audience.

All in all, though, this hunk of Disney-fied myth-kitsch is to Verdi's opera what the Egyptian-themed Luxor Hotel in Vegas is to the real pyramids.

The plot of both "Aidas" is pretty basic: Nubian princess Aida (Marliss Amiea) is captured by an Egyptian warrior, Radames (Michael Murnoch), who falls so hard for her he tosses over his fiancée, mighty Pharaoh's daughter Amneris (Ryah Nixon).

Strip away the hieroglyphs and palm trees, the statuary and scarabs, and "Aida" is your basic costume melodrama — here laced with mostly forgettable but dramatically serviceable John-Rice tunes.

Co-written by original director Robert Falls along with Linda Woolverton and David Henry Hwang, the show wants to be taken semi-seriously while entertaining you with anachronistic touches — Nile Val-Gal princess; dancing Egyptian soldiers dressed (by costumer Karen Ledger) in kinky leather; and a Nubian slave who can sass her captors, and live.

There's plenty of ahistorical twaddle here, but the demands of the Aida role are no joke. Happily, L.A.-based Amiea fills them well. She carries herself regally, acts persuasively and uncorks a big rich-toned voice in her solo blowouts, "The Past is Another Land" and "Easy as Life." (Note to sound operator: Turn down her mic!)

Aida's beloved Radames is a sketchier part, played rather stiffly by Murnoch. And the low-wattage romantic rapport between the leads makes for lukewarm love scenes.

Gifted local native Nixon tries hard to draw laughs from her glib, material-girl lines. But as Amneris matures in adversity ("I Know the Truth"), Nixon shines, too.

Conductor Tim Symons and musicians highlight the lovely, wind-section accents of the instrumental arrangements. But apart from the duet "Elaborate Lives," the John-Rice power ballads are of the overwrought, overreaching ilk. Even Amiea can get screechy, and Bob De Dea (as Radames' demonic dad) struggles with his peak notes.

More enjoyable is the rousing choral anthem, "The Gods Love Nubia." But rest easy, Giuseppe Verdi. It's no match for "The Triumphal March" in your "Aida."

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com