Aida by Verdi, fre 12 jun 2015, Från (2015/2015), Regisserad av Tatjana Gürbaca, Dirigent Renato Palumbo, Opernhaus, Zürich, Schweiz

Aida "If someone had prophesied to me two years ago that I would compose an opera for Cairo, I would have said they were crazy," Giuseppe Verdi wrote in a letter in 187O. The madness became reality: standing at the zenith of his world fame, Verdi wrote his third to last opera commissioned by the Egyptian viceroy Ismael Pasha. Initially, he had campaigned in vain for the Italian composer – Verdi had no desire to compose a hymn for the opening of the Suez Canal. He only became interested in the Egyptian client when he received a manuscript with the rough draft of the Aida-material written by the famous Egyptologist Auguste Mariette. Verdi caught fire for a subject that deals with the failure of young people in a social order that is deadlocked in its power structures and rigid in its state religious rituals. Aida tells an impossible love story in times of war between the enslaved Ethiopian king's daughter Aida, the Egyptian general Radamès and the pharaoh's daughter Amneris. It ends fatally: Aida and Radamès are buried alive. The famous Triumphal March, which is often misunderstood as a decorative mass pageant, is only the face of Verdi's most popular opera. It is full of lyrical intimacy and knows moments of beguiling evocation of nature and longing. Our new Aida production is directed by Tatjana Gürbaca, who caused a sensation last season with a gripping Rigoletto that reduced Verdi to its dramatic embers with great precision . The Latvian Aleksandrs Antonenko, one of the most internationally sought-after tenors of the younger generation, can be heard as Radamès in Zurich for the first time. The American soprano Latonia Moore also makes her debut as Aida at our opera house. General Music Director Fabio Luisi continues his Verdi cycle at the podium of the Zurich Philharmonia.