World premiere: 24 December 1871, Khedivial Opera House, Cairo
Premiere at the Bolshoi (Kamenny) Theatre: 19 November 1875, Imperial Italian Opera Company
Premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre: 1 April 1877, Imperial Russian Opera Company (performed in Russian, translated by Grigory Lishin)
Premiere of this production: 30 December 1998
Running time: 3 hours 35 minutes
The performance has two intervals
Verdi was commissioned to write the opera Aida by Isma'il Pasha, Khedive of Egypt. It had been planned for it to inaugurate the Cairo opera house, and the opening of the opera house in turn heralded the conclusion of construction of the Suez Canal. In its concept, this new trade route from the Arabian Sea to the Mediterranean was to usher in a new age of prosperity for Egypt, while the first Egyptian national opera, composed by a great Italian, was to make the country part of European culture. Verdi did not succeed in completing his opus for the opening – Aida's premiere took place one year later, and the opera was successfully performed at the Cairo theatre until its collapse. Ever since the premiere, it has never left the world's great stages.
Against a backdrop of the glorious conquests of an ancient empire, there unfolds the story of the love between the Egyptian military leader Radamès and Aida, the daughter of the King of Ethiopia, which is at war with Egypt; she has been brought to the Egyptian Court as a slave. This love proves stronger than the promise of glory and power, stronger than loyalty to one's homeland and, in a certain sense, stronger even than death. What is unusual for one of Verdi's operas is that implacable Fate, in the spirit of the ancient world leading the characters to their deaths, is ultimately neither gloomy nor tragic. Death in love and in the name of love appears as some kind of happy oblivion following all of life's storms.
In European culture, Egypt (indeed, the Orient as a whole) was associated with luxury, and the way in which Aida is constructed favours to such luxury. Alexei Stepanyuk's production makes use of rich and varied Egyptian clothing and splendid and majestic sets that frame the choral scenes of celebrations and divine worship. There are also palm trees, ancient stones, a golden calf and a boundless blue sky – everything is depicted in tremendous detail and with great historical accuracy, almost as if actually taking into account the tastes of Verdi himself or Professor Preobrazhensky. It introduces the audience of today to the great tradition of grand opera, all but out of fashion with contemporary directors. Denis Velikzhanin
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