AIDA Verdi – Teatro dell’Opera di Roma

Princess Aida has been kidnapped: a valuable prize in a war between Egypt and Ethiopia. The ambitious soldier Radames wrestles with his feelings for her. As they draw closer together, each must make a painful choice between their loyalty to home, and their love for each other. With its cast of hundreds, thrilling score, and sweeping tale of love and heroics in ancient Egypt, Verdi’s Aida has long been a fixture on the stages of every major opera house in the world. This new production of Rome combines the colossal and the intimate. For Michele Mariotti, conductor and music director of Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Verdi’s genius lies in his managing to combine spectacular, triumphal elements with a love story that unfolds far from public space in delicate pianissimi and sotto voce singing. For these elements to exist on stage, Turin-born director Davide Livermore has found inspiration in silent epic cinema of the early twentieth century combined with certain references to Art Deco. Soprano Krassimira Stoy