I’m cross-posting this article on the “Behind the Music” blog and on “Intentional Happiness.” As you know if you’re a regular reader, I belong to a community choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale, and I write background essays on our selections that then turn up on my own website as well as theirs.
So, for our last concert of the year, in May (tickets are already available!), we are doing several opera selections as part of “The Greatest Choral Show on Earth.” One of them is the “Grand March” from Verdi’s Aida. Because it’s so familiar, it’s easy to lose sight of what a masterpiece it is and what its significance is in the opera as a whole.
Aida has as one distinction that its plot actually makes a certain amount of sense. Basically (or, as my son used to say when he was little, basicawwy), Egypt is at war with Nubia. Aida is a Nubian princess who has been captured and is serving as the maid of Amneris, the Pharaoh’s daughter. No one at court knows Aida’s true identity, though. Both Aida and Amneris are (of course) in love with the same man, Radames, the captain of the army. So it’s a nice setup: Aida is obviously going to have to choose between her love for her country and her love for Radames. She ends up choosing . . . both. I think the ending of this opera is bone-chillingingly beautiful. Radames has been sentenced to death for the supposed betrayal of his country by giving info on troop movements to Aida’s father (except he didn’t mean to!), and he’s been buried alive in a tomb, but Aida willingly shares his fate with him, having hidden herself there ahead of time. They sing “O terra, addio” (Oh earth, farewell) as they die, while Amneris kneels above at the entrance praying for Radames’ soul: “Pace, t’imploro, pace t’imploro, pace, pace, pace!” (“I pray for peace, I pray for peace!”) That final “pace” just floats out over the audience. (It didn’t strike me until I looked this up just now that Amneris doesn’t know Aida is down there dying, too.)
So where does the “Grand March” come into things? It’s at the end of Act II, when the Egyptian army under Radames has returned victorious with the spoils. Nubian captives are part of the procession, with Aida’s father as part of them, although he, like Aida, has managed to keep his true identity a secret. This scene has great scope for all kinds of spectacle, and it’s not completely unknown for there to be a real, live elephant or two onstage. There’s a lovely part of the scene with all this hoop-de-do going on and the main characters (Amneris, Aida, Radames, Aida’s father Amonasro, the high priest Ramphis and the king) singing about their very different emotions: love, triumph, despair, vengeance, etc.
I’m particularly fond of this opera because it was my introduction to this art form. I was a freshman in college, and one of my electives was a class called “Music Appreciation.” As I mentioned in last week’s post, the university I attended put on a fully-staged opera every year. So that year’s selection was Aida, and the class included a study of it as part of the syllabus. Oh man! I just had no idea what opera really was. Once in awhile opera selections would come on KVOD and I’d think,”What a screechy soprano!” They didn’t impress me at all. But learning all about the story and the composer, and then being required to listen to the whole thing in the music library, changed my mind. (The illustration is the LP album cover for the recording we used—can’t do much better than Leontyne Price! The rest of the cast isn’t too shabby, either.) Absolutely fabulous. So when I actually got to see our performance I knew all about it and what to look for, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
That’s the first happy memory I have of this great opera. The second is seeing a performance in Rome at the huge ruins of the Baths of Caracalla. This was way, way back in 1977, when I was traveling with several friends. We saw posters up all over the place and decided to go. Here’s what I actually remember of the evening: 1) the stage crew was staging a mini-strike, so the intermissions were prolonged, I think by as much as half an hour, and 2) they had a guy on a white horse in the Grand March. I do not remember one blooming thing about the performance itself, but it’s still a very vivid mental souvenir of that trip. I recall sitting there in this huge crowd and waiting and waiting and waiting for the action to get started. But hey! I was young and in Rome and with my friends, so it was no big deal. At the time we thought we’d been really, really lucky to get in on this special event, but later we found out that putting on Aida outdoors during high tourist season in Rome is pretty much of a tradition.
So, while we won’t have any horses or elephants or incredibly ornate headdresses in our performance, it’s still going to be great to get to sing this piece. When would I ever be in an actual production of the opera? Probably never. I’ll enjoy getting to participate in this way instead. Hope you do, too, whether you’re part of the chorale or the audience!