1. We will see the Met’s
1989 monumental
staging of Verdi’s 1871
opera Aida. You want
spectacle? We got it
here. The Met’s huge
stage is put to good use
in some very dramatic
scenes. Placido
Domingo is the leading
man in a love triangle
in ancient Egypt.
The Pharaoh’s daughter is ga-ga over
him but he has fallen for Aida, a black
Nubian (Ethiopian) slave.
2. In ancient times interracial marriages were much more
common than now. The bible says (Numbers 12:1) that Moses
had a black wife – from the same region (Ethiopia) as Aida came
from in the opera. As Yogi Berra said, you could look it up.
The love triangle plays out
slowly. The Pharaoh’s
daughter does not know at
first that her personal
slave, Aida, is her rival. She
imagines she will someday
marry Radames, the other
leg of the love tringle, who
is an acclaimed military
general, while he instead
loves Aida. The Pharaoh’s
daughter is a person not to
be trifled with.
Aida, a slave, is a war-captured
Ethiopian princess, daughter of the leader
of their army, enemies of the Egyptians.
3. The Egyptian war chariot,
that the opera’s Radames
character would have
ridden, was an invention
that transformed warfare.
The chariot was invented
about 2000 B.C. and was
dependent on the invention
of the spoked wheel. Since
it was made mostly of wood
and leather few of the
ancient ones have survived
well over the ages.
The date of oldest known
chariot was determined
without any direct evidence
at all of the actual chariot
itself. Instead the unseen
chariot was dated from a
single horse tooth with the
distinctive wear pattern due
to the type of bit used in
chariots. The tooth was
dated by Carbon 14 analysis.
This was a very clever piece of archaeological detective work. Recently
on the PBS TV show NOVA attempts were made to construct an actual
Egyptian war chariot based on ancient images. They found that it is a
very sophisticated device despite its apparent simplicity.
4. No specific time setting is given in Aida, other than ancient Egypt.
The three most famous ancient Egyptians today would be Queen
Nefertiti, the great beauty, her husband Pharaoh Akhenaton – the
inventor of monotheism, and their son King Tut – whose fabulous
tomb treasure was discovered. This was one strange family.
Akhenaton may have mamhavemarriedhavearried hismother
Akhenaton may have married
his mother. He was a very odd
looking bird. Unlike all pharaohs
before and after him, who were
portrayed in art in highly stylized
ways unrelated to their actual
looks, Akhenaton ordered that
he be shown as he actually was
– which was very weird looking.
This statue shows his strangely
narrow head, his long chin and
jaw and his oddly feminine hips.
He had some sort of medical
condition that the experts today
cannot agree upon.
5. Of course there is the famous Pharaoh in the bible, in the Exodus story.
But the identity of that Pharaoh as well as the date for the Exodus is still
a hotly contested topic among Egyptologists. We all know the biblical
story of Moses parting the Red Sea (actually the Reed Sea) and how it
then swallowed up the pursuing Egyptian troops.
The bible does not say what happened to the Pharaoh. But it is likely that
as the top military commander he would have led his troops in pursuing the
fleeing Hebrews. The Jews have had an oral history for over 3000 years of
events and stories that were not incorporated into the bible when that was
codified (such as that King David had red hair). One such legend is that the
Pharaoh’s chariot overturned and crushed his leg. Remarkably the mummy
of a pharaoh who may have been the pharaoh of the Exodus story shows
that he had a crushed leg and may have died from infection. Probably a
coincidence but who knows?
6. Late in his career Verdi
slowed down a lot and mostly
did some revisions of his
earlier operas. He somewhat
reluctantly agreed to a new
opera, Aida, because a lot of
money was promised and he
needed it for some house
renovations he was doing.
Hey, we can relate to that.
Aida had its premier
in Cairo in 1871
