04/15/17 – Aida – 1pm

Metropolitan Opera

Aida
Composed by Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni

• sung in Italian
• ESTIMATED RUN TIME 3 HRS 45 MINS
• front page photo credit: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

The Met’s monumental staging is a dazzling backdrop for the star-crossed love story set amid the clash of ancient empires. Three commanding sopranos—Liudmyla Monastyrska, Latonia Moore, and Krassimira Stoyanova—appear in the title role, the slave girl Aida,who is secretly a princess. Ekaterina Gubanova and Violeta Urmana are the formidable Amneris, daughter of the Egyptian pharaoh, and Marco Berti is the hero Radamès, caught between them. Marco Armiliato and Daniele Rustioni conduct.

World premiere: Cairo Opera House, 1871. This grandest of grand operas features an epic backdrop for what is in essence an intimate love story. Set in ancient Egypt, Aida never loses sight of its three protagonists: Amneris, the proud daughter of the pharaoh; her slave, Aida, who is the princess of the rival kingdom of Ethiopia; and Radamès, the Egyptian warrior they both love. Few operas have matched Aida in its exploration of the conflict of private emotion and public duty.