Aida

She helped break important racial barriers in the field and was especially known for Italian spinto roles.

Above all, Verdi heroines like Aida, Emilia in Un Ballo in Maschera, Leonora in both Il Trovatore and La Forza del Destino.

He's got the same character's name there, okay? Elisabetta in Don Carlo and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth.

These are all Verdi operas.

[opera music]

Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen in music from Act 1 of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida.

She will be seen in the high-definition simulcast from the Met this Saturday at 12 noon.

That simulcast will be seen at movie theaters across the country, including Tinseltown in Kenosha and the Renaissance Theatre in Sturtevant.

Uh, I, I hope you have heard in the past the other, um, se- in the other seasons episode, episodes where we have referred to the bad guys or bad girls in the operas as the true catalyzers of what happens in the opera.

There is no Amneris, there is no Aida.

There is no Iago, there is no Otello.

There is no Princess Eboli, there is no Don Carlo.

[opera music]

And I was saying that many people contend that the problem with Scarpia is that this is not for a baritone at the summit of his career, that this is, uh, really, really for baritones who are, in fact, at the decline of their careers because they say, "Well, he doesn't have a great aria as Rodrigo in Don Carlo.

He does- he doesn't have the virtuosity and the impact as Amonasro in Aida." No, truly, there is none.

But you have this episode that requires a master, not only, uh...

It was 1813.

Aida la Traviata Rigoletto.

He gave the world one beloved masterpiece after another.

Today we bring you the overture to his opera The Sicilian Vespers.

As noted, Cuse sang quite a bit of Verdi in her career, especially at the Staatsoper.

Everything from Amelia in Ballo, Abigail, Aida, Desdemona, Elisabetta in Don Carlo, Leonora in Forza del Destino, and even Lady Macbeth in a celebrated 1964 production.

The single Verdi excerpt on the recording with Kurt Mazur is Lady Macbeth.

I'm not going to say anything against the current lady portraying the role at the Met, For those of you who have spoken to me privately about that particular person, you know my feelings.

But suddenly the matter began to take form in the master's mind.

He set to work, and the result was that in a few weeks Aida was completed.

The stories often told of the long preparation for composing this opera reveal the fine imagination of the men who write for the newspapers.

Verdi seized upon knowledge as a devilfish absorbs its prey.

He learned in the mass.

Aida was first produced at Cairo in 1871 with a grand setting and the best cast procurable.

A new Verdi opera was an event, and critics went from London, Paris, and other capitals to see the performance.

The first thing the knowing ones said was that Verdi was touched with Wagnerism, and that he had studied Lohengrin with painstaking care.

Just a little backstory.

On one of their first dates, they went to the drive-in to see the film version of Aida starring Sophia Loren with the voice of Renata Tebaldi.

And my mother would describe to me, the monumental staging of the final tomb scene.

And I was, without knowing anything about opera, I was so drawn to that book, the Victor Book of the Opera.

So she and I would read the stories, we'd look at the pictures together, we'd read the stories together.

Her favorite, of course, was Aida, because she knew it.

She had seen the movie.

She said to me once, Danny, let's make up verses about some of these operas.