Aida

An all-powerful princess trapped by her station, a slave in love condemned to silence, a hero torn between glory and love, and a fallen father willing to do anything to survive.

*Aida* is not an opera of triumph: it is a tragedy of confinement.

Behind the trappings of power, Verdi composes an intimate, tense work in which love can exist only in flight or in dreams. Aida longs only for another place, a green land far from aridity and war; Radamès dreams of a power that would set him free, but to obtain it, he must destroy the world of the one he loves. All yearn for freedom, yet none can attain it.

Here, there is no monumental Egypt nor spectacular reenactment. Frédéric Roels’s staging transcends time and resonates with our present. Stone shapes the space, serving in turn as a refuge, a wall, or a tomb, while the chorus forms a dense crowd, an indifferent witness to individual tragedies. *Aida* speaks of love under pressure, of crushing power, and of impossible dreams in a closed-off world. A work over 150 years old, yet deeply relevant today, where hope survives only in the idea of a place far away.

An opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi (1871) – Libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a story by Auguste Mariette.
Performed in Italian, with French subtitles.

Free live screening on a giant screen on Sunday, October 18, at 3:00 p.m., at Place Saint-Didier in Avignon.

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