Nilsson may be the most demure Aida ever to grace the Met stage. Her simple sheath instantly marks her as an outsider, but her regal bearing is that of a princess. Simplicity was Nilsson’s trump card, ...

Instead of pretending to be a brat, a princess, a tortured poet or worse, Nilsson sings about McCarthyism and its dank 21st-century echoes, accompanied by synthesizer technology from the twilight ...