Michael Hunsaker and Nikki Renee Daniels in "Aida"

Looking at the posters of shows past at Artpark during the intermission for the current production of Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida, I was startled to realize that the summer when Mary Gordon Murray starred with Jack Gilpin in that glittering production of Can-Can was 17 years ago. That seems impossible. It has been years since we saw Mary Jay as Mama Rose in Gypsy, or Joanna Glushak in Cabaret! The names may mean nothing to you, but if you saw these shows, you remember them. They were gorgeous productions with remarkable casts, and their passing speaks to changing times at Artpark and for musical theater itself.

As subsidy subsided, Artpark long ago lost the ability to do a season of locally produced professional musicals the way it once did. It’s been a frustration, for the Artpark stage was certainly built with big shows in mind.

For that reason it was so nice to see Aida at Artpark the other night, an unabashedly big show, with huge sets and full-throttle chorus numbers. It sounds ironic, but it seemed like the good old days.

Like Artpark, Broadway itself has changed—prices have skyrocketed and corporate producers have entered the game with shows intended to run not just for years but for decades. Aida bowed out after 1,852 performances. The Producers was considered a disappointment after 2,502. It’s not enough to make millions anymore, when you could be making billions. Compare those runs with 7,485 for Cats; 6,680 for Les Misérables; 5,461 for Beauty and the Beast; and over 8,000 and still counting for Phantom of the Opera. Even The Lion King has passed 4,000. (Then compare that with the Golden Age of Broadway, when Guys and Dolls ran for just 1,200 and Kiss Me Kate for 1,070).

With tickets at about a hundred bucks apiece, you do the math. We are talking big money. Musicals remain very popular. But a show at Artpark cannot run for decades to recoup its investment, and it can’t sell souvenirs. It must cover its costs—or at least not break the bank—in just a couple of weeks.

And so, this summer, Artpark decided to take a gamble and put all their resources, including the sponsorship of M&T Bank and a set paid for by an endowment from Delta Sonic Car Wash Systems of Buffalo, into one big, fat show, Elton John and Tim Rice’s colossal and corporate musical, Aida.

Aida might not have been my first choice. Even among corporate musicals, manufactured with huge marketing, tourism and souvenir sales in mind, it has a paint-by-numbers quality. A step above most jukebox shows, but a step beneath Wicked. Still, Aida has a heavily romantic story and offers lots of opportunities for big columns and major headdresses.

The story goes like this. We are in ancient Egypt and Aida, the Nubian princess, has been captured by an Egyptian military excursion headed by Radames, a dashing young officer, who instantly sees something special about the spirited woman and naturally decides to give her, as a gift, to his fiancée, the Princess Amneris, daughter of the Pharaoh.

Herein starts the trouble.

Radames is not really so interested to marry Amneris. In addition, he is unaware that his father, Pharaoh’s chief advisor, is slowly poisoning the monarch in preparation for his son’s post-marital ascent to the throne. All hell will break loose when the romance between Radames and Aida is discovered. In the tragic conclusion, the two will be buried together alive, just like in Verdi’s opera of the same title.

The original Broadway production had a marvelous cast, including Sheri Renée Scott as Amneris and Adam Pascal as Radames, but most impressively, Heather Headley, who was astounding as Aida. So dominant was Miss Headley’s Tony award-winning performance that Ben Brantley of the New York Times quipped that putting other actors beside her was like inviting Lauren Hutton to your 35th high school reunion and then expecting to look good when she stands next to you in your class picture.

Seeing Headley, it was easy to understand how Radames would see her undeniably special qualities or how every Nubian in the camp would recognize her as royal. She was radiant, and she even managed to make Tim Rice’s often facile lyrics sound achingly important.

At Artpark, Nikki Renee Daniels has the unenviable task of stepping into the Heather Headley role, and I am happy to say, I really liked her. Miss Daniels has the advantage of having understudied the role in the original Broadway production, but her portrayal could not be more different from Headley’s. Daniels is a diminutive woman who projects the ebullient energy of the ingénue she is, rather than the regal power of the queen that Heather Headley’s Aida was clearly to become. The result is a greatly softened story, not about a commanding woman defying the confines of an unjust world, but of a girl who is caught in the chaos of that world, just as she begins to understand her place in it. In addition to great charm, Daniels is possessed of a truly lovely voice and effectively ekes the ache out of songs like “Easy as Life” and “Elaborate Lives” with its compellingly moving refrain, “I don’t want to live like that.”

I had seen Michael Hunsaker, who plays Radames, before, in the off-Broadway premiere of John Epperson’s camp comedy, My Deah, a retelling of the Medea story, with the title character recast as a beauty queen in a Southern town. Hunsaker was riotously funny as the sexually unambiguous football coach with a penchant for exhibitionism. A bit of camp experience actually goes a long way in a show like Aida, which must fluctuate wildly between light comedy and heavy melodrama. Hunsaker sings impressively and is a commanding presence as Radames, playing the comic and serious moments with equal skill, and wearing the costumes with as much authority as I recall from My Deah.

I also enjoyed Jacqueline Bayne, who plays Amneris. This is a character with a kitschy dramatic through-line. She is comic relief for most of the evening, but in the final minutes must exert the wisdom of the Reverend Mother in the Sound of Music while simultaneously sending Aida and Radames off to their deaths. Okay then. Miss Bayne pulls it off without once making us wince—quite an achievement under the circumstances. Add to the bargain, she has wonderful comic timing and a thrilling voice.

Christina Sajous is a standout as Nehebka, a minor role who gets a big moment when she sacrifices her own life to save Aida. She has great stage presence and sings brilliantly.

Direction by Randall Kramer and choreography by Lynne Kurdziel-Formato keep the proceedings moving, which is a great virtue. As always, Kurdziel-Formato combines a variety of body types and a range of abilities to create great fun and to enhance the story telling. The ensemble is generously peppered with very fine dancers. Under the musical direction of Michael Hake, the show sounds gorgeous. The set by Eric Appleton evokes the grandeur of both grand opera and the age of the pharaohs with great fluidity and style. The show never lags.

Being at Artpark for Aida was almost like being back at the Harmonia Gardens—and if you were there too, you’ll know what I mean. I felt the room swaying! The show continues through this weekend, August 19.