Hi everyone,

Thanks for what I thought was a great discussion in class Tuesday. I hope you’re excited about the opera! As I said, if there are questions that you have about anything with tech, even if you’re not sure you have questions, I am available for consultations. No question is “dumb” or “obvious.” On that note, a reminder that my office hours are Mondays from 12-2 in my usual spot at the Honors Program Office in room 306 at 138 E 26th st. If that time doesn’t work for you, let me know and we can make a plan for another time, or we can converse via Skype.

One other thing I forgot to mention is applause at the opera. It is a tradition that audiences will applaud after a big aria. It doesn’t always happen, but often does (you’ll notice no one does in the clips below). They also applaud after each act. And in the case of Aida, when the monstrous set in Act II, scene 2 appears with all the animals and the extras and the monuments, the audience often cheers. The best rule of thumb is: applaud when everyone else does. If you feel like applauding at all, that is!

As a follow up to Tuesday, I wanted to give you a few moments to watch from Aida with some commentary. One important thing to remember is that every production — that is, the set, the stage direction, the costuming and props — is different. So when we talk about Aida, the music and text remain the same, but the visual production will differ across time and place. The videos below are from a production in London that is very different from the production we’ll be seeing next week. Please watch and note some of the things that I’m pointing out, which might help you think about connections to make when watching other parts of the opera, too.

As noted, Aida (the character) has a theme, which is the first thing we hear in the entire opera.

The introductory orchestral music, before any singing starts, is built around this theme, and we hear it over and over again.

Moving ahead now to the introductory scene between Radames (the Egyptian hero in love with Aida) and the Pharoah’s adviser, we hear a bit of recitative between the two men. Here, Verdi uses recitative because it helps move the plot along and gives us that sense of verisimilitude, that we are somehow watching a conversation that is actually happening (setting aside the fact that they are singing!).

As we can hear, this is a fully accompanied recitative, meaning that there is a full orchestra underneath the singing, playing along. Still, this singing follows the natural rhythms of speech, and it’s not a melody that is memorable or even that remarkable. In fact, the orchestra’s music here is much prettier than the vocal music, which is somewhat monotone.

But then at 6:45, once the adviser leaves, Radames starts singing slightly more excitedly. Why is this? Look at what he’s singing about. He’s no longer having a conversation with an important member of the ruler’s inner circle, now he’s thinking about his possibility of victory in battle. As we mentioned in class, Verdi uses brass instruments playing a series of phrases that sound like military horn calls to both tell us that Radames is a warrior, and that he’s fantasizing about being the military hero.

As soon as he says “dolce Aida” (“sweet Aida”), the music switches back to strings, a “sweet” sound, and his singing also becomes more gentle. Verdi is letting the music enhance the drama. Then, all this recitative finally pays off, and Verdi gives us one of Radames’ most beloved arias, “Celeste Aida” (“Heavenly Aida”):

Note how different the singing and music of “Celeste Aida” is from all the previous recitative. Verdi has Radames end on a big high note, it’s truly his big moment.

At 11:00, once “Celeste Aida” has finished, Amneris appears, the daughter of Pharoah who is both in love with Radames and who has Aida as a slave. She sees him in this state after singing “Celeste Aida” and assumes correctly that he is in love — with her, she hopes (incorrectly). It’s an interesting moment, because it makes us wonder: was Radames actually singing (“phenomenal” music) and Amneris heard him? Or was the singing just “noumenal,” something going on in the character’s head that only we the audience can hear, but that reflects his mood and state of mind. So she asks him about it, in a flirtatious way, using recitative:

Radames deflects, claiming that he just had this dreamy look on his face because he was dreaming about being named the general of the army. Amneris plays it cool, and asks “Did you not have another dream, which spoke to your heart?” Radames immediately freaks out because Amneris knows that he’s in love, and Verdi perfectly describes this anxiety in the music, which becomes agitated, fast, and excited or almost angry at 12:50.

At this point, both Radames and Amneris sing in recitative, each of them nervous about something. Radames is nervous that Amneris knows he’s in love with someone else because he is in love with an enemy slave, and Amneris is nervous that he’s in love with someone else because it will break her heart. They both sing these as a set of asides, where neither of them can “hear” each other.

Then, at 13:30, we hear Aida’s theme in the clarinets, which is the cue for her to appear onstage. Her appearance and the music are a brief interruption in the nervous music, which resumes at 14:00 once Amneris begins to figure out that Radames is in love with Aida. But then, Amneris plays it cool: she immediately falls back into a sweet melody as she sings to Aida about how they are so close. Again here, we’re meant to understand that Amneris is speaking to Aida, and that Aida can hear these words.

This scene finally ends with all three main characters each interweaving their vocal lines, each of them singing about the predicament that they’re now in, all over Amneris’s anxious/angry music. This is neither a recitative nor an aria. It’s a trio where the musical value lies in the way that each melody interweaves, along with the music of the orchestra, and it leads to a satisfying and exciting conclusion to this scene, both dramatically and musically.

Eventually, trumpets herald the entrance of the Pharoah, who announces Radames as the chosen warrior leader, and the scene concludes with more pomp, featuring a military march “Ritorna vincero” that sounds a lot like revolutionary songs of the European 19th century (right around the time of the composition of Aida, Italy was overthrowing the Austro-Hungarian empire and establishing its national autonomy; Verdi was actually a symbol of national identity and pride, and his name became a popular rallying cry as an acronym for “Vittorio Emmanuel, Re D’Italia!”). Then Aida sings a long solo scene that combines recitatives with aria where she realizes she is caught between her loyalty to Ethiopia and her love for the Egyptian warrior who seeks to overthrow Ethiopia.

In her singing in defense of Ethiopia, she is strong and powerful, but then when she starts singing about Radames and her love, her singing becomes tender and fragile. This is a way that Verdi is characterizing her conflict in music, but it’s also important to note how Verdi plays on patriarchal ideas about female weakness and love.

The Act ends with an eerie temple scene, where Verdi writes a ceremony in the temple of the gods to anoint Radames.

All this description is a long way of saying that while watching the opera next Monday, you won’t be able to pick up on all the subtleties that I’ve pointed out here, but it’s important to think about the ways that Verdi might be using music and the conventions of opera to help tell this story and enhance the drama. By watching these clips and reading through my description, I hope that you’ll have something to recognize and see how it’s done differently in the production we’re going to see, with a different cast and new staging. If you have questions about the opera, or any parts of the clips that I’ve posted above, please let me know.

-Jake