As ever with Wilson's work, we are in a world and style influenced by Noh theatre and silent films with a kind of distanced, glacial, intermittently effective lighting plot. The effect is hieratical in the extreme and initially has a strange fascination, its simplicity of setting and acting having for a while quite a hypnotic effect. But as the work progresses, one realises one is seeing Aida as some kind of staged oratorio, with the principals never touching, and emoting, if at all, only to themselves.

Monnaie orchestra was in tip-top rip-roaring form, brass firm focussed and cutting edge, woodwind, specially the flutes, longbreathed
and luminous, strings reaching to top and bottom of their ranges with exemplary certainty and clarity.