“Aida” by Giuseppe Verdi

Notes on the Libretto

Aida began not with Ghislanzoni’s verses but with a prose scenario associated with the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette and developed with Camille du Locle. Antonio Ghislanzoni subsequently fashioned the Italian libretto in close consultation with Verdi. The opera was commissioned for Cairo and received its first performance there on 24 December 1871; contrary to a persistent legend, it was not composed for the opening of the Suez Canal.

Verdi’s concern with the force of individual words is especially evident in “Ritorna vincitor!”—“Return victorious!”—the cry that precipitates Aida’s great Act I monologue. In correspondence concerning Aida, Verdi used the expression parola scenica for language possessing an immediate theatrical power; the Metropolitan Opera notes “Ritorna vincitor!” as a characteristic example. The phrase is perfectly simple grammatically, yet dramatically cruel: Aida realizes that in wishing Radamès victorious she has wished defeat upon her father and her own people.

Preparing the Italian–English text also exposed smaller inconsistencies that easily pass unnoticed. The female religious figure in the Temple of Vulcan is simply Sacerdotessa. “Priestess” has therefore been retained rather than the sometimes encountered “High Priestess”; the Italian supplies no suprema or other indication of superior rank. Historical Met records likewise list the role simply as “Priestess.”

Even the Egyptian setting calls for some editorial restraint: Ghislanzoni specifies only ancient Egypt “in the time of the Pharaohs,” leaving the drama deliberately outside a precise historical reign.