![]() With Aida, he consolidates the vast new territory pioneered in Don Carlos, and in many regards it is his most classical work, summing up and perfecting a magnum opus. Verdi progressed through his entire career with works alternating between innovations and their consolidation. It is the composer's final encounter with grand opéra. The purposefully static, monolithic and grandiose architecture is reflected by and abets the King and High Priests, the rigid and severe authoritarian rulers. In the fourth-act judgment scene, the terrain for the confrontation with death and a Last Judgement is set. With its ritualistic structure, the temple scene in the second scene of the first act (in which absolutely nothing "happens") and the triumphal scene with its massive architecture, the way forward to the Requiem is paved. It is noteworthy that his next work, the Requiem (1874), is fully ceremonial and static. This opera sums up so many of Verdi's innovations and developments. ![]() It is built of large granite-like architectural blocks, which remain unmoved while the personal tragedy of the protagonists, who may seem small, is played out. But at the time, Verdi, and others, thought of it as the last one: his magnum opus.Īida has been described as a "ceremonial opera." Its monumentality was almost inborn, as it It was commissioned for the opening of the Suez Canal. We know it was an interruption and not an ending. Verdi's monumental classical opera also marks an exclamation point in his life. Since its Metropolitan Opera premiere in 1886, it has been given there 1,175 times, second only to La Bohème. It reached ten cities-including New York, Berlin, Vienna and Buenos Aires-within two and a half years 20 cities within three years 30 within four 40 within five and 50 within ten years. ![]() Verdi's opera Aida enjoyed an almost unparalleled popular international success following its premieres in Cairo and Milan (in 18, respectively). Through their music and pathos, we experience our own lives and seek our own transcendence, the same way we do when we listen to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner. Only the message is very much that of Verdi himself, in his unmistakable voice. And yet we yearn to hear them, over and over again. Giuseppe Verdi, with his hard-nosed realism, believed that happiness was difficult to attain and, if attained, was fleeting at best. ![]() Aida: A Culminating Grand Opera, the Third of a Mature Trilogy, and a (Not So) Final Chapter
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