Shirin Neshat's 'anti-war' 'Aida' inaugurates the Liceu season

Barcelona"I live in a country, the United States, which together with Israel has attacked my country, Iran," says visual artist Shirin Neshat (Qazvin, 1957). She explains this during a break in rehearsals for the production of the opera Aida, by Verdi, for which she is the stage director and which will inaugurate the 2026-2027 season of the Gran Teatre del Liceu on September 25th. Seventeen performances will be held until October 15th, including one for those under 35 on September 23rd. "Aida is an Ethiopian princess in love with Radames, an Egyptian general who will invade her country. And the taxes I pay in the United States have been used to attack Iran, where my relatives live," recalls Neshat, known for works about women in the Middle East, "situated between political tyranny and religious fanaticism, who try to defend both their individuality and their humanity"; women who, in addition to contexts of oppression, also suffer from Western gazes fueled by orientalist stereotypes.

All in all, this artistic perspective, the vital coincidences, and the current war context are very much present in this Aida, which is the first opera directed by Neshat. It was commissioned by the Salzburg Festival. She first made a "more timid" version in 2017. Later, she added more video material in 2022, and finally, in 2025, the Paris Opera gave her "total freedom" to culminate the production that now arrives in Barcelona with different casts, including four Aidas: the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko (September 25 and 28 and October 4 and 5), the Italian Anna Pirozzi (September 27 and October 2, 6, 9, 13 and 15), the Russian Olga Maslova (September 23 and 19 and October 3, 8, 11 and 14), and the Polish-American Ewa Płonka (October 7).

At a press conference at the Liceu, the Iranian artist speaks openly about the different paradoxes involved in working with one of Verdi's great operas, also one of the most tragic, featuring a fateful triangle formed by Aida, Radames, and Amneris, the daughter of the King of Egypt who is in love with Radames. On one hand, she says, it is "a glorification of war" created by "a European composer" with an "orientalist, negative view of non-Western cultures." On the other hand, it is also an opera about authoritarianism and religious fanaticism, two things that resonate in today's Iran, a country that, furthermore, is attacked by the United States. "The challenge is how I can show my love for Verdi from the perspective of an Iranian woman, critical of war and religious intolerance," she explains. "I have made an Aida anti-war", he adds. He achieves this through the staging. For example, "portraying the pain of the victims of war" and showing both "the oppressors and the enslaved".

"I don't want to apologize for bringing the corpses onto the stage"

Shirin Neshat flees from the maximalism that often accompanies Aida, an opera that involves the participation of a very large chorus. Her proposal has a rather minimalist character. A large cube inspired by ancient Egyptian temples occupies the center of the stage and can be rotated to facilitate different scenographies. "I really like the scenic economy of this cube," she admits. Also important are the black and white videos that constitute "one more layer of the narrative because they have a plot-related meaning" and go beyond a simple aesthetic resource. The images show, for example, slaves crossing a desert that "it is not specified whether it is from Iran, Europe, or Ethiopia," and also the victims of war. "I don't want to apologize for bringing corpses onto the stage," says Neshat. "There is suffering all over the world, in Palestine, also in my country... and we are becoming desensitized," she adds. "But art is not isolated from reality. Art must move us." "You have to understand Shirin's thinking to convey it," says Anna Pirozzi.

"I totally agree with what Shirin Neshat has explained," assures Antonello Manacorda, who returns to the Liceu ten years after conducting the theater's orchestra in The Magic Flute by Mozart with staging by Barrie Kosky. "In Verdi's operas, as in Shakespeare's works and Greek tragedies, there is a connection to the present," says Manacorda regarding an Aida that he describes as "an opera of women, about Aida and Amneris." "And this is essential to understand the pain and anger of a work in which triumph and tragedy are presented at the same time," says the Italian conductor, who at the Liceu will alternate the baton with the Vila-real conductor Josep Gil.

In the extensive cast of this Aida, the role of Amneris will be alternated by the Belarusian Ekaterina Semenchuk, the Uzbek Ksenia Dudnikova, and the Italian Fiorenza Cedolins, all three with Verdian experience. Semenchuk has performed three lead roles at the Liceu: in La Gioconda, by Ponchielli; in Turandot, by Puccini, and in Macbeth, by Verdi. "Verdi always gives an opportunity, even to evil characters like Lady Macbeth. In Aida, Amneris repeats 'Peace, peace, peace'. That is what we must preserve, and take care of," asks Semenchuk. The role of Radamès will be played by the Pole Piotr Beczała, the Georgian Arsen Soghomonyan, and the Russian Ivan Gyngazov. The cast also includes Ludovic Tézier, Àngel Òdena, Amartuvshin Enkhbat, Simón Orfila, Núria Vilà, George Andguladze, and Vittorio De Campo, among others. All this to sustain "this extraordinary Verdian architecture," as the artistic director of the Liceu, Víctor Garcia de Gomar, says.

The presence of Anna Netrebko at the Liceu

The Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, one of the most highly sought-after voices in opera houses, continues to be surrounded by controversy. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, European and North American theaters canceled her appearances due to her ties with Vladimir Putin's regime. In late March 2022, Netrebko condemned the war against Ukraine, and gradually she was scheduled again elsewhere. At the Liceu, however, she had not sung since giving a recital in 2021. Aida will be the second staged opera in which she will participate at the theater on the Rambla since Iolanta, by Tchaikovsky, in 2013. However, the Ukrainian government has always considered that Netrebko had been too ambiguous, and for that reason, the controversy is revived every time she performs.

According to Víctor Garcia de Gomar, the Liceu "cannot question the vocal and artistic value" that Netrebko represents. "We are talking about one of the best singers of this moment. Therefore, from the artistic side, and it is an artistic choice, we do not question it. On the other hand, I believe that from the artistic directions of all the theaters in the world, and also from the Liceu, when a singer is invited, one does not assume their biography, nor their opinions, nor their political positions –says Garcia de Gomar–. We reclaim the stage as a space of freedom, and the stage cannot become a severe tribunal of purity regarding the opinion of artists." The Liceu's option, asserts its artistic director, "is not to discard, nor to distance, nor to punish, nor to not allow the public to be able to enjoy one of the most brilliant stars in our current firmament." "This is the Liceu's choice and precisely because of that she is in this production as she was in Salzburg," he concludes.