Aida - Schedule, Program & Tickets

Aida

Opera lirica in four acts
Libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni based on a design by Auguste Mariette,
elaborated by Camille Du Locle in collaboration with Giuseppe Verdi
First performance on December 24, 1871 in Cairo
Premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on November 22, 2015

In Italian with German and English surtitles

3 hours 15 minutes / one break

Introduction: 45 minutes before the start of the performance in the foyer on the right


“Amore, sommissione, dolcezza” - these are the attributes that Giuseppe Verdi ascribed to his title character Aida: a woman who stands for pure love, docility and tenderness. Aida thus fits in with the series of female fictional figures of the 19th century who were less real beings than objects of longing and projection surfaces of chauvinistic male dreams and who inevitably found their destiny in dying out of love. This path is also mapped out for Aida. But unlike in Verdi's previous operas, AIDA has an alternative to doomed love: Amneris. Verdi characterizes them with “molto vivacità” in his personal directory: At Amneris, life pulsates. Like a lioness she fights for her love, with her a solid relationship would be possible. However, Radames, the man between Aida and Amneris, cannot choose a realistic life. He gets lost in fantasies of Aida, the “exotic”, distant woman. Out of love for this female angel, Radames becomes a hero in his dreams in the fight against oppression and suffering, which, however, also exists in exotic, other worlds, so far from his own reality. Radames stages his heroism in front of the public and at the same time suffers from the failure of his own claim to be able to reconcile utopian love and political utopia. Because his dream figure Aida is destined to die anyway, and the rescue of all prisoners and the oppressed is both hopeless and in turn associated with violence. A hero who is far from reality and suffering from his own Weltschmerz stands at the center of an opera that is perhaps the most pessimistic by Giuseppe Verdi. Because it ends with the flight from the world and with the complete retreat into a stone mausoleum. In the end, Aida’s death also stands for the death of utopia.

In this sense, director Benedikt von Peter understands Verdi's “Grand Opéra” AIDA as a “Requiem for Utopia”, which is constantly watched by countless pairs of eyes of the public, and its production plays in the entire auditorium of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Benedikt von Peter has drawn attention to himself in recent years with his directorial work and often unusual spatial solutions, including Verdi's I MASNADIERI at the Frankfurt Opera, at the Komische Oper Berlin Handel's THESEUS, FIDELIO and IDOMENEO, at the Basel Theater LES DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES and PARSIFAL as well as at the Hanover State Opera Luigi Nonos INTOLLERANZA 1960, LA TRAVIATA and DON GIOVANNI. Benedikt von Peter has received several awards for his productions in recent years: he received the Götz Friedrich Prize for CHIEF JOSEPH at the Heidelberg Theater in 2007 and the German Theater Prize DER FAUST for INTOLLERANZA 1960 in 2011. From 2012 to 2015 he was employed as the head director of music theater in Bremen. In 2014 he was awarded the Kurt Hübner Prize for his productions at the Bremen Theater (including RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY, LA BOHEME, MAHLER III, MEISTERSINGER) and for the overall performance of the music theater division. From the 2016/2017 season, Benedikt von Peter will be the director of the Lucerne Theater.


Musical director Leonardo Sini
Production by Benedikt von Peter
Stage Katrin Wittig
Lene Schwind costumes
Video Bert Zander
Jeremy Bines choirs

The King Patrick Guetti
Amneris Anna Smirnova
Aida Guanqun Yu
Radames Stefano La Colla
Ramfis Byung Gil Kim
Amonasro Markus Brück
A messenger Andrei Danilov
A priestess Valeriia Savinskaia

Choir of the Deutsche Oper Berlin
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin



Subject to changes.

There are no products matching the selection.