The Greek National Opera opens this year’s Athens Festival with Giuseppe Verdi’s magnificent opera Aida, to be performed on 10, 11, 12 and 15 June 2016 at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus Theatre. This popular piece gets a fresh interpretation in the GNO’s capable hands, in a show first produced by the renowned Taormina Opera Festival, conducted by Myron Michailidis and Elias Voudouris, and directed by Enrico Castiglione.
Aida marks a turning point in Italian music, balanced on the cusp between Romantic opera and French grand opera. Breathtaking arias, thrilling crowd scenes, long duets and stunning ballet all set Aida apart, a masterpiece that showcases Verdi’s operatic language reaching new heights. The grand, exotic strains of the triumphal march immediately transport us to the mysterious East, a setting which has contributed greatly to the opera’s continuing popularity. The action unfolds in the ancient Egypt of the pharaohs, veiled in the mists of time: a setting largely familiar to 20th century audiences thanks to a slew of glamorous Hollywood films. But the exotic locale is just one of the jewels in Aida’s crown. Verdi is famous for his portrayals of love triangles, and in Aida we meet three of his most star-crossed lovers. Aida, the princess of Ethiopia held hostage in the Pharaoh’s court, has fallen in love with one of her captors: the Egyptian general Radamès. Secretly, he loves her in return, but there is a catch: the Pharaoh’s daughter Amneris, who holds Aida as her slave, has also fallen in love with Radamès, with deadly consequences. At the heart of the work is Aida, trapped between her feelings for the man she loves and her duty to her father and homeland.
Aida represents an ongoing dialogue between public life and private emotions; a dialogue that shapes the entire aesthetic of the work, which ranges from sotto voce confessions to exuberant declarations. The crowd scenes such as the triumphal march in Scene 2, Act 2 stand in strong contrast with the private emotions experienced by the opera’s three main characters. One of Verdi’s greatest accomplishments in this work was the balance he managed to strike: offering us a grandiose and lavish march scene that somehow conveys his deep sympathy with the losers, while concluding the opera in a simple, low-key, yet far more powerful manner, stirring up great feelings in the audience with the lightest of touches. The portrayal of Aida’s dignified stance and the opera’s strong sympathies for the underdog have an undeniable ring of truth to them, as the great composer himself passionately defended human rights throughout his life.

Myron Michailidis, Artistic Director of the GNO and Chief Conductor in this production says: “Aida was first presented by the GNO on 8 January 1958 inaugurating the new Olympia Theatre. This year it has been programmed at the end of the current artistic season, at the same time at a turning point in the history of the Greek National Opera, in view of its relocation to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre. With Aida, this «necklace of precious musical gems» as it has been characterized, Giuseppe Verdi has not only breathed new life to the «tired» Italian opera, bringing various twists, but also revealed the full extent of his own capabilities, and established himself as the undisputed leader of opera in his country, a «maestro» to the rest of the world. One could refer to the «triumphal march» or the mythical, exotic historic framework –that of pharaonic Egypt- or to the delicate rendering of the psychology of the opera’s protagonists. Yet, no description can adequately render the spectrum of the work’s importance, except perhaps for the words of Thomas Mann in their simplicity in the Magic Mountain, when referring to the final duet of the lovers: They sang about paradise, but their songs where paradise themselves and were sung like paradise».
Conducted by the GNO’s Artistic Director, Myron Michailidis, and Elias Voudouris, the opera is a new production of the celebrated Taormina Opera Festival, and is directed by the experienced Italian director Enrico Castiglione who is known for rendering his productions a quality of film-making as well as a realistic point of view.
With great Greek and international soloists like Cellia Costea, Anda-Louise Bogza, Walter Fraccaro, Francesco Anile, Elena Gabouri, Elena Cassian, Aris Argiris, Angelo Veccia, Tassos Apostolou, Dimitris Kassioumis et al.

With the Orchestra, Chorus and Ballet of the Greek National Opera

TICKET PRICES
Upper Tier €25, C Zone €45, B Zone €55, A Zone €60. VIP Zones B & D €85,
VIP Zone C €100/ Children & students €15