Aida

The story of Aida

Where do your loyalties lie?

As Egypt prepares to launch an attack on Ethiopia, the ambitious soldier Radames readies to serve his country. But his secret love for Aida, an Ethiopian prisoner concealing her true identity, has grave consequences. As political conflict deepens, the lovers’ truths threaten to emerge, forcing a terrible choice between loyalty to home – and to each other.

An Egyptian Opera?

‘Cyprus; Spain; Jerusalem; Paris; the banks of the Euphrates; Mantua. The operas of Giuseppe Verdi are set in a variety of diverse locales, depicted in some detail in the set descriptions contained in the librettos,’ writes Francesco Izzo in our Aida programme note. In Aida, we find ’A hall in the King’s palace in Memphis …A large gate at the back, through which the temples and palaces of Memphis and the pyramids are visible.’ In more recent years, however, many contemporary iterations of Aida have seen directors stage Verdi’s story of love and war outside of a more outdated ‘Egyptian’ (read: elephants, pyramids) landscape. Robert Carsen’s deliberately austere and stark production here brings the opera’s wartime setting to the fore, with all the relevancy of the present day – against which the lovers’ doomed relationship seems even more poignant.

Indeed, strip away the spectacle of this imagined Egypt and Aida, at its core, is still a rich and deeply immersive story. Much like Verdi’s other popular operas (think Don Carlo, La forza del destino and Rigoletto), Aida captivates audiences with its tragic love story and with its poignant exploration of the unbreakable bond between father and daughter. It is these enduring themes, in the end, that allow us to think of Aida not as an ‘Egyptian’ opera, but a human one. 

To find out more about Aida, including key plot points and background information: read our Opera Essentials: Aida