15€ Standard ticket
12€ Cine Albéniz members
Opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi with a libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni
Sung in Italian, with subtitles in Spanish
Recorded without an audience in the Opéra National de Paris - Bastille, Paris, 2021
Production Opéra National de Paris - Bastille
Soloman Howard The King of Egypt
Ksenia Dudnikova Amneris
Sondra Radvanovsky Aida
Jonas Kaufmann Radames
Dmitry Belosselskiy Ramfis
Ludovic Tézier Amonasro
Alessandro Liberatore A messenger
Roberta Mantegna Sacerdotessa
Opéra National de Paris - Bastille Orchestra and Choir
Conductor Michele Mariotti
Stage director Lotte de Beer
3.00 h (w/intermission)
photo ©Vincent Pontet
Performed for the first time at the Cairo Opera in 1871 to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, Aida takes us to the fantasy of a reconstructed Antiquity. The plot revolves around the impossible choice between love and patriotic duty: a captive Ethiopian princess and an Egyptian soldier betray their people, defy a powerful rival and band together until death. The opera contains several of the composer’s favourite themes. Longing for the lost homeland, liberation through death, the contrast between a disheartening present and one idealised elsewhere, the suffocating scope of religious and political power… All of these controlling factors in a world conceived as a trap.
For the debut at the National Opera of Paris, the Dutch stage designer Lotte de Beer chose to bring a critical vision to the European representation of the colonised people, making us question the relationship between the aesthetic productions of the past and the present.
15€ Standard ticket
12€ Cine Albéniz members