Love along the Nile

Casting a Verdi opera these days, as everyone knows, is a challenge. It’s not a question of finding singers who have the notes. Difficult as that is, that’s not an insurmountable problem. But finding singers who have the right style, the strength and flexibility of line, the intelligence to probe and shape the text, the acting smarts to make us care about the characters, that’s where we come up short.

And finding a conductor who can support and amplify all these requirements isn’t so easy, either.

All of which is to say that the Los Angeles Opera revival of its opulent 2000 Pier-Luigi Pizzi co-production with the Houston Grand Opera of Verdi’s “Aida,” which opened Saturday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, fell a bit short of the mark.

Michele Crider, who is eight months’ pregnant, made her company debut in the title role of the Ethiopian slave to Amneris, the Princess of Egypt. Somewhat restricted in movement, she was nevertheless persuasive in her acting. Vocally, however, it took her almost two acts to warm up and overcome a tendency to be wiry, thin and prone to singing sharp.

By the Nile Scene, she was pitch secure, able to sing with power and draw on some robust chest tones for the confrontation with her father, the captured Ethiopian King Amonasro. She spun out a final, lingering pianissimo at the end of her aria “Oh, patria mia” (Oh, My Country). While she failed to find many of the role’s vocal colors or its deep vulnerabilities, her management of its quieter dynamics was most admirable.

Franco Farina, as her lover, Radames, leader of the Egyptian forces, sang out like a cannon from the get-go. He wasn’t particularly nuanced vocally or dramatically, and he didn’t find the soft volume control knob until the love duets in the third and fourth acts. But he remained throughout a force to reckon with.

As the thwarted-in-love Egyptian Princess Amneris, Irina Mishura pretty much ran away with the opera. She was superbly duplicitous and ultimately vulnerable, and she sang with rich power, if also with occasional throatiness.

In other roles, Lado Ataneli was an arresting, barrel-toned Amonasro, Arutjun Kotchinian was a hooty Ramfis and Reinhard Hagan was a hollow-voiced King of Egypt. Peter Nathan Foltz was an unpowered Messenger. Joohee Choi was the pure-voiced Priestess.

The dancers gave their all in Peggy Hickey’s stylistically confused choreography -- think Alwin Nikolais meets Isadora Duncan -- particularly the principals -- Susan Glandstone, Shell Bauman and Rocklin Thompson.

Dan Ettinger, who will become music director of the Israel Symphony next season, made his company conducting debut. Despite some youthful bouncing on the podium, he brought little insight or authority to the score. Perhaps the production will jell a bit more during the run, which ends Feb. 19.

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‘Aida’

Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Feb. 2, 10, 16 and 19; 2 p.m. Sunday and Feb. 5 and 13

Price: $25 to $190

Contact: (213) 972-8001;

losangelesopera.com