A Sit-Down With Verdi's Aida
The Plot Summary
Aida, opera in four acts (1871)
I'm Verdi, and this is the plot summary of my opera Aida. You'll follow Aida, an Ethiopian princess held captive in Egypt, whose love for the general Radamès leads them both to a sealed vault in the final act. Whenever you're ready, open the Trainer and try to recognize our pieces, since on this site my fellow composers and I also teach exactly that.
---
Aida Decoded: An Epic Tale from Verdi
Picture ancient Egypt, with its temples, its trumpets and its generals, and then picture a love story squeezed into the middle of a war. That's Aida, my opera in four acts, where an Ethiopian princess held captive in Egypt falls for the very general who is sent to fight her people. Around them swirl a jealous rival, a disguised captive and a king who hands out rewards with unfortunate side effects. Stay with me, because the journey runs from a quiet daydream to a grand parade, a tense meeting on a riverbank and a last duet in the dark.Meet the Cast: The Power Players of Aida
Aida is the heart of the story: a soprano singing the role of an Ethiopian princess held captive in Egypt, who loves the general Radamès and is pulled between that love and her own people, so that nearly every scene asks her to pay for her happiness with someone's loyalty.Radamès is the tenor, an Egyptian general who leads the army against Ethiopia and loves Aida, a brave soldier whose heart keeps overruling his duty, which is a charming quality in a lover and a dangerous one in a commander, from the first scene to the last.
Amneris, a mezzo-soprano, loves Radamès as well, which makes her Aida's rival, and she is proud, sharp and quite willing to set a trap, since she tricks Aida into confessing her love; her jealousy keeps pushing the story toward its darkest turns.
Amonasro, a baritone, is the King of Ethiopia and Aida's father, and he appears among the captives in disguise and later pressures Aida to learn the army's route from Radamès, and he is cunning, forceful and utterly focused on winning, so when he steps forward he sets the central betrayal in motion.
Act 1: A Daydream Before the Drums
War is coming: Radamès, an Egyptian commander, hears that Egypt is at war with Ethiopia, and suddenly the whole opera has a ticking clock, because the man who loves an Ethiopian princess may be the one chosen to defeat her country.Two women, one general: Radamès loves the enslaved Ethiopian princess Aida, while Amneris loves him, so before the war has even begun there is a love triangle with a secret on one side and a rivalry on the other, and every glance in the room carries a little danger.
A hero's soft side: In "Celeste Aida" Radamès, newly aware of the war, turns his thoughts to Aida, and the tender, floating tune shows us a soldier whose private feelings are far louder than the army's drums, which is exactly the tension the opera will explore for four acts.
The King chooses: The King declares war and appoints Radamès to command, an honor that brings glory and heartache in equal measure, and Aida is left facing the cruel fact that whichever side wins this war, she stands to lose someone she loves.
Act 2: A Parade With Hidden Wounds
A clever trap: After the Egyptian victory, Amneris tricks Aida into confessing her love, and the scene crackles with the pleasure of a cat who has found the mouse, because now Amneris knows exactly who her rival is and the gloves can come off.The grand parade: The Triumphal March fills the stage with the returning army, the chorus "Gloria all'Egitto" and a band playing on the stage itself, so the music sounds as if a whole city has turned out to cheer, and for a moment the opera is pure spectacle.
A prisoner in disguise: Among the Ethiopian captives presented to the crowd stands Amonasro, disguised, and the scene gains a dangerous edge, because the audience knows that one of the prisoners is hiding who he is while the Egyptians celebrate.
A prize with a price: Radamès pleads for the prisoners' freedom, and the King makes him his successor and betroths him to Amneris, so the hero is rewarded with the one thing he does not want, a royal marriage that leaves Aida in despair.
Act 3: A Quiet Riverbank With Loud Consequences
Longing on the Nile: The scene takes place on the banks of the Nile, where Aida sings "O patria mia", a soprano aria full of homesickness, and the long, sad melody makes us feel how far she is from the country she may never see again.Pressure on Aida: Amonasro coerces his own daughter Aida into finding out from Radamès which route the army will take, forcing her to choose between the man she loves and the people she belongs to, and the pressure he applies is so relentless that it feels like a trap closing slowly.
The fatal answer: Radamès tells Aida the army's route, and with that single answer a loyal general hands his enemies the most valuable secret in the war, an act born of love that everyone else will call treason, and a private conversation becomes a matter of state.
The mask drops: Amonasro reveals himself, Radamès is arrested as a traitor, and the act ends on a shock, because the hero who returned as a celebrated victor has now become, within a few minutes of music, the most hunted man in Egypt.
Act 4: Love in a Very Small Room
A rival's change of heart: Amneris tries to save Radamès, because her love for him has not vanished just because he loves someone else, and the proud rival of earlier acts is now, in the last act, a woman begging fate for mercy.No denial: Radamès refuses to deny the charge against him, an act of stubborn honesty, or perhaps of despair, because he has already given up his duty for love and seems unwilling to take any of it back, whatever the price.
Buried alive: The sentence is as cruel as the opera can offer, since Radamès is condemned to be buried alive in a vault, and the music turns almost unbearably hushed and heavy, as if the whole orchestra were holding its breath.
Together at the end: Aida has hidden in the vault, and she dies with Radamès, so their closing duet "O terra addio" becomes a farewell to the earth sung by two people who finally have each other, which is as tender and heartbreaking an ending as I could imagine.
A Committee Behind the Curtain
Before any of this reached the stage, the Egyptologist Auguste Mariette prepared the subject, a story from antiquity. Camille du Locle, director of the Opéra-Comique, then drafted a French prose version, and Antonio Ghislanzoni put it into Italian verse. I began composing in August 1870, and the plan to premiere in January 1871 was swept aside by the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris. Mariette is usually credited with the plot, though some scholars credit Temistocle Solera, so who first proposed it remains a small mystery.Curtain Call in Cairo, Bows in Milan
Aida finally premiered on 24 December 1871 at the Khedivial Opera House in Cairo, with Giovanni Bottesini conducting. I did not travel to Cairo for it, so the first audience heard my work without me in the room. The Italian premiere followed at La Scala in Milan on 8 February 1872. Within five years the opera had been staged in European capitals and in New York, which shows how quickly a story from ancient Egypt found a home everywhere.---
When I think back over the story of Aida, the moment I come back to most is the one beside the Nile in Act 3. The Nile is quiet, and Aida stands alone with her thoughts of the country she may never see again. That stillness matters to me, because in "O patria mia" she is allowed one honest breath before her father Amonasro asks of her the very thing that will unravel everything. After that, Radamès gives away the army's route, Amonasro reveals himself, and the love story begins its slow walk toward the vault. Perhaps that is why the aria stays with people long after the plot has run its course. It reminds us that behind the processions and the trumpets there is a woman who simply misses home. Did you enjoy getting to know the plot of Aida? I hope it gave you a clearer picture of where she stands, and why her longing carries so much weight in the story. There is still a lot of Aida left to explore. You could look at how the Triumphal March came to sound the way it does, spend more time with Radamès and "Celeste Aida", or find out how the whole opera came to be written for Egypt. If any of that tempts you, please click on the links provided and carry on exploring. I think you'll find that the opera has more to show you each time you return to it.