Aida (or Aïda, ) is a tragic opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini. Today the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world. At New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, Aida has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886. Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, but Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz argues that the source is actually Temistocle Solera.

Elements of the opera's genesis and sources

Isma'il Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, commissioned Verdi to write an opera to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, but Verdi declined. However, Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, proposed to Khedive Pasha a plot for a celebratory opera set in ancient Egypt. Khedive Pasha referred Mariette to theatre manager Camille du Locle, who sent Mariette's story idea to Verdi. Eventually, Verdi agreed to compose an opera based on that story, for 150,000 francs.

Because the scenery and costumes were stuck in the French capital during the Siege of Paris (1870–71) of the ongoing Franco-Prussian War, the premiere was delayed and Verdi's Rigoletto was performed instead. The first opera performed at the Khedivial Opera House, Aida eventually premiered in Cairo on 24 December 1871.

Performance history

Cairo premiere and initial success in Italy

thumb|Radamès (Giuseppe Fancelli) and Aida ([[Teresa Stolz) in act 4, scene 2 of the 1872 La Scala European première (drawing by Leopoldo Metlicovitz)]]

Verdi originally chose to write a brief orchestral prelude instead of a full overture for the opera. He then composed an overture of the "potpourri" variety to replace the original prelude. However, in the end he decided not to have the overture performed because of its—his own words—"pretentious silliness". This overture, never used today, was given a rare broadcast performance by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra on 30 March 1940, but was never commercially issued.

Aida met with great acclaim when it finally opened in Cairo on 24 December 1871. The costumes and accessories for the première were designed by Auguste Mariette, who also oversaw the design and construction of the sets, which were made in Paris by the Opéra's scene painters Auguste-Alfred Rubé and Philippe Chaperon (acts 1 and 4) and Édouard Desplechin and Jean-Baptiste Lavastre (acts 2 and 3), and shipped to Cairo. Although Verdi did not attend the premiere in Cairo, he was most dissatisfied with the fact that the audience consisted of invited dignitaries, politicians and critics, but no members of the general public. He therefore considered the Italian (and European) première, held at La Scala, Milan on 8 February 1872, and a performance in which he was heavily involved at every stage, to be its real première.

Verdi had also written the role of Aida for the voice of Teresa Stolz, who sang it for the first time at the Milan première. Verdi had asked her fiancé, Angelo Mariani, to conduct the Cairo première, but he declined, so Giovanni Bottesini filled the gap. The Milan Amneris, Maria Waldmann, was his favourite in the role and she repeated it a number of times at his request.

Aida was received with great enthusiasm at its Milan première. The opera was soon mounted at major opera houses throughout Italy, including the Teatro Regio di Parma (20 April 1872), the Teatro di San Carlo (30 March 1873), La Fenice (11 June 1873), the Teatro Regio di Torino (26 December 1874), the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (30 September 1877, with Giuseppina Pasqua as Amneris and Franco Novara as the King), and the Teatro Costanzi (8 October 1881, with Theresia Singer as Aida and Giulia Novelli as Amneris) among others.

Other 19th-century performances

thumb|Verdi conducting the 1880 [[Paris Opera premiere]]

Details of important national and other premières of Aida follow:

  • Argentina: 4 October 1873, at the original Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, located at Rivadavia and Reconquista, then replaced by the headquarters of the Bank of the Argentine Nation.
  • United States: 26 November 1873, Academy of Music in New York City, with Ostava Torriani in the title role, Annie Louise Cary as Amneris, Italo Campanini as Radamès, Victor Maurel as Amonasro, and Evasio Scolara as the King; the conductor was Verdi's friend and student Emanuele Muzio.
  • Germany: 20 April 1874, Berlin State Opera, with Mathilde Mallinger as Aida, Albert Niemann as Radamès, and Franz Betz as Amonasro
  • Austria: 29 April 1874, Vienna State Opera, with Amalie Materna as Amneris
  • Hungary: 10 April 1875, Hungarian State Opera House, Budapest and the performance was conducted by Verdi.
  • United Kingdom: 22 June 1876, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Adelina Patti as Aida, Ernesto Nicolini as Radamès, and Francesco Graziani as Amonasro
  • Australia: 6 September 1877, Royal Theatre, Melbourne
  • Munich: 1877, Bavarian State Opera, with Josephine Schefsky as Amneris
  • Mexico: September 1877, Gran Teatro Nacional, with Angela Peralta as Aida, Giuseppe Frapolli as Radamès,Fanny Natali as Amneris and Giuseppe Villani as Amonasro (La Voz de Mexico)
  • Stockholm: 16 February 1880, Royal Swedish Opera in Swedish, with Selma Ek in the title role
  • Palais Garnier, Paris: 22 March 1880, sung in French, with Gabrielle Krauss as Aida, Rosine Bloch as Amnéris, Henri Sellier as Radamès, Victor Maurel as Amonasro, Georges-François Menu as the King, and Auguste Boudouresque as Ramphis.
  • Metropolitan Opera, New York: 12 November 1886, conducted by Anton Seidl, with Therese Herbert-Förster (the wife of Victor Herbert) in the title role, Carl Zobel as Radamès, Marianne Brandt as Amneris, Adolf Robinson as Amonasro, Emil Fischer as Ramfis, and as the King.

20th century and beyond

thumb|A scene from the [[Israeli Opera production performed at Masada in 2011]]

A complete concert version of the opera was given in New York City in 1949. Conducted by Toscanini with Herva Nelli as Aida and Richard Tucker as Radamès, it was televised on the NBC television network. Due to the length of the opera, it was divided into two telecasts, preserved on kinescopes, and later released on video by RCA and Testament. The audio portion of the broadcast, including some remakes in June 1954, was released on LP and CD by RCA Victor. Other notable performances from this period include a 1955 performance conducted by Tullio Serafin with Maria Callas as Aida and Richard Tucker as Radamès and a 1959 performance conducted by Herbert von Karajan with Renata Tebaldi as Aida and Carlo Bergonzi as Radamès.

La Scala mounted a lavish new production of Aida designed by Franco Zeffirelli for the opening night of its 2006/2007 season. The production starred Violeta Urmana in the title role and Roberto Alagna as Radamès. Alagna subsequently made the headlines when he was booed for his rendition of "Celeste Aida" during the second performance, walked off the stage, and was dismissed from the remainder of the run. The production continued to cause controversy in 2014 when Zeffirelli protested at La Scala's rental of the production to the Astana Opera House in Kazakhstan without his permission. According to Zeffirelli, the move had doomed his production to an "infamous and brutal" fate.

Aida continues to be a staple of the standard operatic repertoire. It is frequently performed in the Verona Arena, and is a staple of its renowned opera festival.

Roles

{| class="wikitable"

|+

!Role

!Voice type

!Premiere cast,<br />24 December 1871<br />Cairo<br />Conductor: Giovanni Bottesini

!European premiere<br />8 February 1872<br />La Scala, Milan<br />Conductor: Franco Faccio

|-

|Aida, an Ethiopian princess

|soprano

|Antonietta Anastasi-Pozzoni

|Teresa Stolz

|-

|The King of Egypt

|bass

|Tommaso Costa

|Paride Pavoleri

|-

|Amneris, daughter of the Pharaoh

|mezzo-soprano

|Eleonora Grossi

|Maria Waldmann

|-

|Radamès, Captain of the Guard

|tenor

|Pietro Mongini

|Giuseppe Fancelli

|-

|Amonasro, King of Ethiopia

|baritone

|Francesco Steller

|Francesco Pandolfini

|-

|Ramfis, High Priest

|bass

|Paolo Medini

|Ormоndo Maini

|-

|A messenger

|tenor

|Luigi Stecchi-Bottardi

|Luigi Vistarini

|-

|Voice of the High Priestess

|soprano

|Marietta Allievi

|

|-

| colspan="4"|Priests, priestesses, ministers, captains, soldiers, officials, Ethiopians, slaves and prisoners, Egyptians, animals and chorus

|}

Instrumentation

3 flutes, 3 flûtes d'amour, (3rd also piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, cimbasso, timpani, triangle, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, harp, strings; on-stage banda: 6 Egyptian trumpets ("Aida trumpets"), military band, harp

Setting

thumb|upright=1.35|Poster for a 1908 production in Cleveland, showing the triumphal scene in act 2, scene&nbsp;2

The libretto does not specify a precise time period, so it is difficult to place the opera more specifically than the Old Kingdom. For the first production, Mariette went to great efforts to make the sets and costumes authentic. Considering the consistent artistic styles throughout the 3000-year history of ancient Egypt, a given production does not particularly need to choose a specific time period within the larger frame of ancient Egyptian history. Above the vault in the temple of Ptah, Amneris weeps and prays to the goddess Isis. In the vault below, Aida dies in Radamès' arms as the priests, offstage, pray to the god Ptah. (Chorus, Aida, Radamès, Amneris: "Immenso Ftha" / Almighty Ptah).

Adaptations

The 1942 Egyptian music film Aydah, starring Umm Kulthum in the title role. It incorporates the opera into a contemporary Egyptian context.

The 1952 Broadway musical My Darlin' Aida, set on a plantation in Tennessee in the first year of the American Civil War, is based on the opera and uses Verdi's music.

The opera has been adapted for motion pictures on several occasions, most notably in a 1953 production which starred Lois Maxwell as Amneris and Sophia Loren as Aida, and a 1987 Swedish production. In both cases, the lead actors lip-synched to recordings by actual opera singers. In the case of the 1953 film, Ebe Stignani sang as Amneris, while Renata Tebaldi sang as Aida.

The opera's story, but not its music, was used as the basis for a 1998 musical of the same name written by Elton John and Tim Rice.

The opera has been portrayed in the 2001 Italian animated film Aida of the Trees (Aida degli alberi). The characters are seen as anthropomorphic creatures between the fictional kingdoms of Alborea and Petra as the star-crossed lovers must find a way to unify their worlds while facing off against the evil high priest Ramfis.

The 2022 version choreographed by the Royal Opera House (directed by Robert Carsen) set the opera in a modern, Soviet-style, totalitarian state.

Recordings

References

Sources

  • (hardcover); (paperback).
  • Paris: Slatkine (1983 reprint) .

Further reading

  • De Van, Gilles (trans. Gilda Roberts) (1998). Verdi's Theater: Creating Drama Through Music. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. (hardback), (paperback)
  • Forment, Bruno (2015). "Staging Verdi in the Provinces: The Aida Scenery of Albert Dubosq", in Staging Verdi and Wagner, ed. Naomi Matsumoto (pp.&nbsp;263–286). Turnhout: Brepols.
  • Gossett, Philip (2006). Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • "Aida" in The Oxford Dictionary of Music, (ed.) Michael Kennedy. 2nd ed. rev., (Accessed 19 September 2010)
  • Martin, George Whitney (1963). Verdi: His Music, Life and Times. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company.
  • , translated by Richard Salinger (1921). The Opera Goer's Complete Guide, pp.&nbsp;7–9. Dodd, Mead and Company. (Source of synopsis with updating to its language)
  • Osborne, Charles (1969). The Complete Operas of Verdi, New York: Da Capo Press.
  • Parker, Roger (1998). "Aida", in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, vol. 1. London: Macmillan, 1998
  • Parker, Roger (2007). The New Grove Guide to Verdi and His Operas, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Pistone, Danièle (1995). Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera: From Rossini to Puccini, Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press.
  • Rous, Samual Holland (1924). The Victrola Book of the Opera: Stories of One Hundred and Twenty Operas with Seven-Hundred Illustrations and Descriptions of Twelve-Hundred Victor Opera Records. Victor Talking Machine Co.
  • Toye, Francis (1931). Giuseppe Verdi: His Life and Works, New York: Knopf.
  • Walker, Frank (1982). The Man Verdi. New York: Knopf, 1962, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992). The Oxford Dictionary of Opera New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Werfel, Franz and Stefan, Paul (1973). Verdi: The Man and His Letters, New York, Vienna House.
  • Aïda : an opera in four acts, 1900 publication, English, digitised by BYU on archive.org
  • Opera Guide, Synopsis – libretto – highlights
  • "Synopsis, libretto" , Naxos Records
  • Complete libretto of the opera
  • Piano reduction, William and Gayle Cook Music Library, Indiana University School of Music
  • Aria Database list of arias
  • Further Aida discography
  • Libretto in Italian and English, Online Library of Liberty
  • Synopsis, commentary, music analysis, anecdotes, opera-inside.com