By Fred Plotkin
Mention Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida to someone not deeply acquainted with it and the response might be, “That’s the grand opera with the elephants!” In fact, apart from some outdoor performances done in the past for tourists at Rome’s Baths of Caracalla, the presence of pachyderms in Aida productions is rare indeed.
This opera is much more than grand spectacle, thrilling though that can be. Ismail Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt, wanted Verdi to write an ode to inaugurate the Khedivial Opera House in Cairo coinciding with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Verdi was offended, replying that he would not create music for “an occasion.” The theater ultimately opened with Rigoletto on November 1, 1869.
Aida only came later, in part because Verdi was intrigued by some of the elements of the story and its dramatic potential. It did not hurt that he was offered the stupendous fee of 150,000 French francs (four times what he got in Paris to compose Don Carlos in 1867).
Like all of Verdi’s masterpieces, Aida is suffused with the composer’s concerns about political freedom, justice, questions of public responsibility versus private desires, and the inevitable disaster that is the legacy of those who would make war rather than love.
Verdi had used his early operas—including Nabucco, Attila, and Macbeth—to foster Il Risorgimento (the Resurgence) that led to the formation of the Italian Republic in 1861. The struggling new nation was showing signs of discord. When Verdi began work on Aida, conflicts (including the Franco-Prussian War and Siege of Paris in 1870) had been raging in Europe for decades.
The composer was a senatore a vita (a permanent senator) in the new government, whose first capital was Turin, seat of the House of Savoy, Italy’s royal family. They had a passion for ancient Egypt and, in 1832, opened the world’s first museum devoted to the subject. Verdi spent considerable time there, drawing inspiration to create Aida.
Photo: Yves Renaud/Opéra de Montréal
Typically, Verdi took part in rehearsals of his new operas to elaborate or fine-tune his orchestrations and make changes if he felt something in the dramaturgy could be improved.
Verdi did not go to Cairo to participate in the inaugural production. This meant that he did the orchestration ahead of time. Given Verdi’s talents and those of his librettist Ghislanzoni, and the importance of the occasion, it was not a surprise that the opera enjoyed a huge success on December 24, 1871.
When Aida came to Italy (La Scala on February 8, 1872), Verdi tinkered with it somewhat. He composed an overture but eventually abandoned it during the rehearsal period. He also focused more on the final moments of the opera, when Aida and Radamès sing a love duet in the chamber that will become their tomb.
The last lines of the opera are given to Amneris, Aida’s Egyptian rival for the love of Radamès: “Pace t’imploro, pace, pace, pace.” After all the death and bloodshed—in the opera and in real life—the composer (through Amneris) makes a plea for peace to his own fellow citizens and to all Europeans. How sadly fitting his message still is today.
Fred Plotkin is author of Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera. He writes for WQXR’s Operavore, lectures for major opera companies, and hosts “Fred Plotkin on Fridays” on Idagio.com.