Aida
Details
In Brief
The vulnerable protagonists of Aida face an agonising moral dilemma: to what should they be loyal? To their homelands? To their families? Or to their love? The story of the opera is a product of war: not only in its writing, but on the stage as well. The sounds of war resonate throughout the tale of the captive Ethiopian princess and king, and the Egyptian commander brought down by and for love. Although Egypt wins a pyrrhic victory, this triumph desired by so many brings ruin to all who wished for it. This is a story about war, a topic as old as man and which will continue as long as our species. War chooses life or death for millions, divides families and lovers, and permeates warring countries and their people of every order and rank, from pharaoh to slave. But there is one thing that can never be vanquished: the purity of the soul. In the concert version of Verdi's masterpiece, internationall renowned tenor Gregory Kunde stars as Radamès.
Parental guidance
Events
Synopsis
Act I
The Ethiopian princess Aida is being held captive in Egypt, although no one knows of her royal origins. Also kept secret is the love between Aida and Ramadès, the young Egyptian military commander.
The high priest announces that the Ethiopians have attacked Egypt again and informs Radamès that Isis has named him to lead the Egyptian forces. Amneris, the pharaoh's daughter, is also in love with Radamès and hopes that if the young general returns victorious, he will marry her. Radamès, however, nourishes the hope that if he wins a victory, he will be able to marry his secret love, Aida, who herself is confronted with the choice of whose victory she should pray for: her lover's or that of her father and her homeland?
Act II
Aida's father attacks Egypt in order to free his daughter, but suffers a defeat. Radamès returns home victorious with Aida's father among the captured soldiers. The pharaoh announces that he will reward Radamès by granting any request of his. The general asks for the Ethiopian prisoners to be set free, but the high priest obstructs this. The pharaoh offers his daughter, and his throne, to Radamès.
Act III
Under cover of night, Aida awaits Radamès, who had invited her to a secret meeting on the bank of the Nile. The princess feels her situation to be hopeless: her beloved is getting ready to marry the pharaoh's daughter, and she cannot return home. Suddenly, her father appears and pressures her mercilessly: he knows that her lover is the enemy's general, and he orders her to lead Radamès into committing treason.
Trusting Aida, Radamès betrays secret military information, at which point Amonasro rushes out and reveals to Radamès that he is the king of Ethiopia.
The jealous Amneris also bursts forth with her entourage, but before she can have the treasonous general arrested, Radamès succeeds in ensuring the escape of both Aida and her father.
Act IV
The despairing Amneris tries to save the life of the man she loves and who has been condemned to death because of her, but Radamès has no wish to live without Aida. The death sentence is carried out, and Radamès is sealed alive in a crypt. In the silent tomb, Aida emerges from her hiding place in order to die together with her love.
Opera guide
One of the most beautiful love-and-death duets in opera
Although it would be truly difficult (and moreover quite improper) to single out especially popular or iconic works from Verdi’s oeuvre, with Aida we are nevertheless compelled to do something of the sort. For what the average person in the street more or less thinks of when it comes to the genre of opera – that is Aida. A multitude of catchy hit melodies, a sequence of exotic spectacles with their awe-inspiring or even smile-inducing pageant scenes, the obligatory love triangle, the several ballet interludes that halt the action, and even the indispensable extreme operatic mode of death (in this case being sealed in a rock tomb) – all are present here. And if we should need further proof, let us only listen to the timeless Triumphal March from Aida resounding in European football stadiums! This triumphant exaltation of typicality, however, carries some risk: we may all too easily forget the opera’s distinctive features and particular merits.
For instance, the tableaux – with their horses, triumphal chariots, and so on – inevitably obscure the drama’s intimate, interpersonal dimension, which is at least as important as the Egyptian-Ethiopian conflict. Or the audience, and at times even the directors, may fail to notice the startling degree of passivity in the title role. Aida, while compelled at every moment to show obedience and solidarity in two irreconcilably hostile directions, never truly acts as an agent herself. The Ethiopian princess’s two arias, and indeed her entire vocal part, exert such a magical allure on dramatic sopranos (who by their very nature possess an active stage presence), and on prima donnas in general, that the outpouring of vocal energy often buries the inert character beneath it. And although among Italian operatic heroines the type of passive victim who merely suffers events is by no means rare, it is still noteworthy that Aida’s first and only independent action is to conceal herself in the tomb prepared for Radamès. True, it is thanks to this deed that we have one of the most beautiful love-and-death duets in all opera literature.
Ferenc László