Premiere on 22 July 2010 - 9.15 p.m., Floating Stage
Director Graham Vick and stage designer Paul Brown were keen to make use of Lake Constance in Aida, not just as a grand backdrop but as an integral part of the production. With ships and platforms, parts of the stage set that emerge from under the water, and entry points for the performers which are both on and under the water – the stage set for Aida will come into being during the performance itself before the eyes of the audience.
It's one of the most performed operas in the entire repertoire: a story of a legendary love stronger than death, and a very modern parable about nationalism, belligerence and hatred of the enemy. Giuseppe Verdi's monumental opera Aida is to receive its first ever performance on the Bregenz Floating Stage in the summer of 2009 and 2010. The story of the tragic love between the Ethiopian princess Aida – once brought to the Nile as a slave - and the Egyptian commander Radames was enthusiastically acclaimed at its premiere in Cairo in 1871. Since then Aida has gone on to become one of the most popular and most performed works in the opera repertoire.
Right from the start Verdi conceived Aida an as opera that would be second to none, endowed with all the elements of the genre in perfect combination. There are grandiose choral scenes and rousing rhythmic marches, lyrical evocations of nature, gorgeous arias and romantic duets, and their effect is further enhanced by the exotic flavour of the music. The famous triumphal march with its blaring fanfares and stirring choruses is one of the musical and dramatic highpoints of "grand Italian opera".
The beautiful Aida and the proud Radames are condemned to death – he for treachery, she for love. They are to be immured in a temple vault while still alive, a death that could hardly be more pitiless. And yet their end is accompanied by music which reveals nothing of the awful fait that awaits them: for at this moment we hear the final aria "O terra addio, addio valle di pianti ("O Earth, farewell – farewell, vale of tears") – so delicate, so pure and so radiant that it would seem that nothing in the world can make this love perish. Aida and Radames are carried off together by death, united for ever in a last embrace.
