The opera Aida by Verdi was staged at the Mikhailovsky Theater for the first time in its history. The director was Igor Ushakov, the musical director was debutant Alexander Vedernikov, and the title parts were performed by an international cast of soloists. "Aida" - a great opera of great passions - begins with a very quiet, timidly creeping introduction, symbolizing the emerging feeling of pure love, which will grow to a climactic wave. But this feeling cannot last forever and unclouded, and therefore very soon a wall of destructive “counterwave” rolls over it. Verdi contrasted one system of humanistic values with another. On the contrasting poles set in the introduction, the dramaturgy of the opera is also built, where love and jealousy, the rigidity of an inhuman ritual and a living sense of freedom come into battle.
