By Bernard Holland [NY Times, 17 October 2005]

Leave social relevance at home. File away those updates. Please, no metaphors for the human condition in 2005.

Verdi's "Aida" returned to the Metropolitan Opera on Friday night: big, loud and happy to flex its muscles - in other words, very much itself. Sonja Frisell and Gianni Quaranta designed and executed this grand grand-opera production 18 years ago, and this year's revival breathes nicely with Zoe Pappas's judicious stage direction and James Conlon's vivid conducting.