Aida

An all-powerful princess imprisoned by her rank, a lovelorn slave condemned to silence, a hero torn between glory and love, and a fallen father ready 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 where love can only exist in flight or in dreams. Aida desires only a different place, a green land far from aridity and war; Radamès dreams of a power that would liberate him, but to obtain it he must destroy the world of the woman he loves. All yearn for freedom, but none can conquer it.

Here, there is no monumental Egypt or spectacular reconstruction. Frédéric Roels' staging transcends time and makes the work resonate with our present. Stone shapes the space, by turns a refuge, a wall, or a tomb, while the chorus forms a compact crowd, an indifferent witness to individual dramas. Aida speaks of love under pressure, of crushing power, and of impossible dreams in a closed world. A work over 150 years old, yet profoundly relevant, where hope survives only in the idea of ​​somewhere else.

Opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi (1871) – Libretto Antonio Ghislanzoni after Auguste Mariette.
Sung in Italian, surtitled in French.

Free live broadcast on a giant screen on Sunday, October 18th at 15pm, Place Saint-Didier in Avignon.