Verdi's Aida, commissioned by the Khedive of Egypt for his new Cairo opera house, returns to Covent Garden in Robert Carsen's production.
The Royal Opera revives Robert Carsen’s production of Verdi’s Aida on the Main Stage at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden from Wednesday 19 May 2027.
The Khedive of Egypt wanted an opera for his new house in Cairo, and Verdi held out for a large fee. Aida opened there on Christmas Eve 1871, an Italian grand opera about ancient Egypt with a plot supplied by a French Egyptologist.
It calls for the forces of a grand opera at full stretch. Behind the triumphal march sits a chamber piece about three people: a soldier, the princess he serves, and the enslaved Ethiopian woman he loves, who is the enemy king’s daughter.
Verdi ends it with two people sealed in a vault, singing softly. The story that he wrote it for the opening of the Suez Canal is not true, since the opera house opened two years before the opera.
The run falls between Chelsea and Ascot, in the middle of the London Season, and closes on Saturday 12 June 2027. Carsen strips the Egypt out and plays it as a modern military state.