But two years later, Aida premièred in Cairo in December, 1871 and in Milan a few months later. With a libretto in hand, Verdi composed the music in just four months.Īs it turned out, delays beyond Verdi’s control meant that Aida was not ready for the opening of the new house - Rigoletto was performed instead. He hired a journalist, Antonio Ghislanzoni, to translate it into Italian. Mariette would end up having a significant role in Aida - overseeing designs for sets and costumes.ĭu Locle composed a French libretto, but Verdi, still burned from the difficult experience of writing Don Carlos for the Paris Opera, decided it should be in Italian. Verdi was intrigued, both by the story itself and the hand that wrote it. As he cast around for a subject, French librettist Camille du Locle suggested a story set in Ancient Egypt, sending the veteran composer a synopsis written by the Egyptologist August Mariette Bey. In the darkness, the King’s plan, Aida’s conflicted heart and Radamès’ steadfast love collide in a devastating finale.Īccustomed to receiving commissions from Paris and Milan, Verdi must have found it refreshing to receive a request from the Khedive of Egypt for a new opera to celebrate the opening of the Khedivial Opera House. On the banks of the Nile, the lovers arrange to meet one last time.īut the conquered Ethiopian King has a plan to save his country. Just when all seems lost, the King of Egypt deals another blow: promising the triumphant Radamès his daughter Amneris’ hand.
Through victory in battle, Radamès hopes to win the hand of the beautiful slave girl Aida - handmaiden to the princess Amneris, and secretly, an Ethiopian princess.Īida is torn between her love for the Egyptian hero and her despair for the country he must march against - her homeland.Īnd the Princess Amneris, who also desires Radamès, is beginning to have suspicions that her hero might prefer her slave…Īs Radamès returns to Egypt in triumph, Aida is greeted with a terrible sight - her father Amonasro, the King of Ethiopia, is among the slaves. When Radames helps Aida and her father to escape their Egyptian captors, he betrays both his people and Amneris, daughter of the Pharaoh, and his future wife.A rebellion is brewing on Egypt’s borders, and for both the oppressor and the oppressed, loves and loyalties are about to be tested.Įgypt needs a hero to lead their army, and the High Priest has made his choice. Two warring nations, Egypt and Ethiopia, are the backdrop for the more intimate story of Radames, leader of the Egyptian forces, and his affair with Aida, daughter of his enemy’s King.
The result was Aida, which was performed at the house for the first time on 24 December 1871.Īida is classic Verdi: a tale whose dynamic stems from one individual’s love for another being thwarted by the world that surrounds them. After Verdi’s Rigoletto was performed for the dedication of the Khedivial Opera House on 1 November 1869, the Egyptian Viceroy was determined to have a new work, his own world premiere, to match the splendour of his theatre. Pasha had originally hoped to entice Verdi into writing a hymn to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, an occasion that would also be marked by the building of a new opera house in Cairo but the composer showed little interest. Now performed all over the world, Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida was the outcome of a direct commission from Egypt’s ruler, Isma'il Pasha a statement of his ambition for his country to become the bridge between the European and African continents.
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