Verdi's score was ready a year before the work had its première. The production was delayed by force of circumstances. Scenery and costumes were made by French artists. Before these accessories could be shipped to Cairo, the Franco-Prussian war broke out. They could not be gotten out of Paris. Their delivery was delayed accordingly.
Does the score of "Aïda" owe any of its charm, passion, and dramatic stress to the opportunity thus afforded Verdi of going over it and carefully revising it, after he had considered it finished? Quite possibly. For we know that he made changes, eliminating, for instance, a chorus in the style of Palestrina, which he did not consider suitable to the priesthood of Isis. Even this one change resulted in condensation, a valuable quality, and in leaving the exotic music of the temple scene entirely free to exert to the full its fascination of local colour and atmosphere.
The story is unfolded in four acts and seven scenes.
Act I. Scene 1. After a very brief prelude, the curtain rises on a hall in the King's palace in Memphis. Through a high gateway at the back are seen the temples and palaces of Memphis and the pyramids.
It had been supposed that, after the invasion of Ethiopia by the Egyptians, the Ethiopians would be a long time in recovering from their defeat. But Amonasro, their king, has swiftly rallied the remnants of his defeated army, gathered new levies to his standard, and crossed the frontier—all this with such extraordinary rapidity that the first news of it has reached the Egyptian court in Memphis through a messenger hot-foot from Thebes with the startling word that the sacred city itself is threatened.
Copyright photo by Dupont
Emma Eames as Aïda