Opera Explained | Aida by Giuseppe Verdi (Audio)

Written by Thomson Smillie, narrated by David Timson.

Aida occupies a very special place in operatic lore. The fact that it is surrounded by misunderstandings, mis-apprehensions and mis-told anecdotes only attests to its legendary status. The popular myth that it was commissioned to mark the opening of the Suez Canal is one. It was commissioned for the opening of the Cairo Opera House and the Khedive of Egypt wanted the world’s most famous and successful composer to be part of those celebrations, having failed to coax a new opera out of him for the Canal opening. A popular mis-apprehension of those attending Aida for the first time is that it is basically a circus, featuring spectacular scenes, great tunes, camels, horses, slaves – even some zoologically inappropriate elephants. The view of the academic is that it is one of the subtler and finer human dramas by the greatest of all Italian music-dramatists at the height of his majestic powers. And the fact of course is that it is both. It has moments of great spectacle, but it is basically that great theatrical stand-by, the Eternal Triangle.

Ancient Egypt and the war with Ethiopia is the setting for Verdi's grandest opera. It is the story of the love between Rhadames, the Egyptian general, and Aida, an Ethiopian slave, and the jealousy of Amneris, daughter of the King of Egypt.

Verdi was the composer who, over a career that spanned more than half the nineteenth century, provided the Italians with the supreme examples of their favourite art form. Verdi responded with a superb score which captures all the passions of the young lovers, their terrors amid the jealous fits of the thwarted princess, all the sultry heat of Africa and the noises of its night and, where required, the barbarism and splendour of the Age of the Pharaohs. How thrilling it is to experience a work which brings forth the highest acclaim from the most sophisticated musicologist, yet which can still delight the child in all of us.

Tracklist:
1. Introduction
2. Verdi’s three periods in a sixty-year span
3. The political background
4. Aida – the beginnings
5. The Prelude and Act I
6. Act II
7. The Grand March
8. Act III
9. Act IV
10. The death scene

Performance:
Maria Dragoni
Kristjan Johannsson
Barbara Dever

National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland
Conducted by Rico Saccani