BEIJING, July 8 -- What could be more spectacular
than a live performance of Verdi's masterpiece opera Aida in front of its
spiritual home, the Giza Pyramids, just outside Cairo? But if you can't make it
to Egypt, the Cairo Opera House is performing it at Beijing's National Center
for the Performing Arts from July 10 to 13.
The Cairo Opera House will bring a huge cast and crew
of more than 300 to Beijing, including the orchestra, chorus, ballet dancers and
technicians along with the stage, accessories and decorations.
Stage engineer and setting designer Mahmoud Haggag
visited the venue earlier this year and promised to present one of the most
splendid productions of Aida.
There will be a 9-m-tall, 14-m-wide statue of
Pharaoh, six huge stone pillars, a 20-m-long ship, the luxurious room of the
Egyptian princess Amneris and the 5-m-tall war chariot commanded by the general
Radames.
"The new National Center for the Performing Arts has
the most advanced theater facilities which make many possibilities come true,"
says Haggag.
"The triumphal march composed of 500 performers and
including 200 locals from Beijing will be one of the most lavish things you have
ever seen. And the whole production will show a noticeable improvement in
facilities over previous shows," says Haggag.
Cairo Opera House artistic director Abdel-Moneim
Kameto is promising that this, his fourth Aida, will offer "a new vision" of the
ballet.
The background to the conception of Aida is suitably
noteworthy.
As part of the celebrations of the opening of the
Suez Canal in November 1869, the Khedive of Egypt built a new opera house in
Cairo and approached Verdi about the composition of an inaugural ode. The
composer declined somewhat haughtily, saying he was "not accustomed to compose
occasional pieces".
Six months later, however, Verdi finally consented to
write an opera specifically for Cairo, on an Egyptian theme. Camille Du Locle, a
close friend since the days they had collaborated on Don Carlos in Paris, had
sent him a scenario based on a synopsis written by Auguste Mariette, a French
Egyptologist in the service of the Khedive.
The premiere in Cairo was originally scheduled for
January 1871 but the French had not long before declared war on Prussia and the
plans were put on hold. The wait was worthy, though, and the premiere was a
resounding success.
This four-act tragic working of the famous tale of
star-crossed lovers - the triumphant Egyptian captain Radames and the captured
Ethiopian slave-girl, Aida - stormed the operatic world and remains one of the
best-loved operas of all time.
Aida features a perfect combination of musical
invention and dramatic expression. It is also a work involving various personal
relationships. Of these relationships, the rivalry between Aida, daughter of the
King of Ethiopia, and Amneris, daughter of the King of Egypt, is intense. Both
love Radames, victorious leader of the Egyptian army. He loves Aida but is given
the hand of Amneris in reward for his exploits as army commander. But even more
complex is the relationship of Aida with her father who arrives as an
unrecognized prisoner.
Many and various complex possibilities of the
father-daughter relationship occur throughout Verdi's operas, but nowhere more
starkly than in this opera, where the father puts tremendous emotional pressure
on his daughter to cajole her lover into betraying a state secret. This betrayal
would cost the lives of the two lovers.
The cast includes sopranos Iman Moustafa and Julie
Karagouni as Aida, tenors Angelo Simos and Mario Leonardi as Radames, baritone
Moustafa Mohamed as Amonasro, and sopranos Hanan El Guindy and Eugenie Grunewald
as Amneris.
(Source: China Daily)
