According to Nikolaus Harnoncourt, only three operatic composers - Monteverdi, Mozart and Verdi - have done justice to opera in all its complexity. All achieved a perfect balance between arioso and recitative, between the "subtext" of the orchestra that throws light on the work's different layers of meaning and, finally the gestural element that is written into the score. Other composers such as Handel, Beethoven, the early 19th-century proponents of bel canto opera and, last but not least, Alban Berg all reinvented opera for their own specific ends, while giving a different emphasis to each of these various elements.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, to learn that Verdi initially declined an invitation to write a festival hymn to open the Suez Canal, before agreeing to write a festival opera for the second season of the new opera house in Cairo. The draft outline hy the head of the Egyptologv section at the Louvre, Auguste-Édouard Mariette, appealed to him. Camille du Locle prepared a prose draft, and this was then veisified by Antonio Ghislanzoni. It is clear from the surviving correspondence that Verdi himself was actively involved in the genesis of the libretto. He completed the score in December 1870, but work on the first performance was delayed as the sets and costumes were untler siege in Paris. Verdi put a brave face on this delay, although its cause - the Franco-Prussian War - was a source of deep regret to him.
With seismographic sensitivity, yet with a far-sighted awareness of the subject's universal validity, Verdi confronted head-on the political mood of the times in Aida, with even the Prelude contrasting Aida's profoundly human, tenderly blossoming theme with that of the Priests, in which the strict irnitative writing succinctly describes the fundamentalist implacability of their power within the state, an implacability that rides roughshod over all other emotions. Within the course of the opera, Harnoncourt argues, these two themes conjure up this same emotional atmosphere. Harnoncourt first conducted Aida for the Zurich Opera in March 1997 in a production by Johannes Schaaf. On that occasion. listeners were struck by his chamberlike approach to the work, an approach developed out of the score's frequent piano performance markings. "In the Requiem, too, which we are performing at the 2001 Styriarte in Graz, there is an incredible number of pianissimo and pianississimo markings in the score."
Quite apart from the fact that these two works date from the same period in Verdi’s life and that both of them deal with death, there are other parallels between them that Nikolaus Harnoncourt considers significant. These include the use of melodic formulas front the Ambrosian liturgy that was limited to the region around Milan and the trumpet fanfares that erupt from every side. In the Requiem these are found in the “Tuba mirum", in Aida in the second-act "Triumphal March" (described by Verdi as an "Inno" or hymn). Harnoncourt calls it an “Anti-Triumphal March” as it wears the brilliant mask of a display of political power. Certainly the Khedive Ismail Pasha, who wanted to use the accompanying chorus “Gloria all'Egitto” as a national anthem, was instantly taken in by this mask. The "Egyptian" trumpets that Verdi demanded here were specially made for the Zurich production and for the present recording with the Vienna Philharmonic.
A closer examination of the dramatis personae reveals two iery strong female characters as foils to the rather weak "hero" Radames. Aida clearly feels from the outset that her only option is death. and she pursues this course unerringly. The motivating force behind Amneri's actions, which may sometimes seem rather unyielding, is her intense love ol Radames, and there is nothing that she desires more than that he should return her lore. The change that overcomes her when she assumes true inner greatness is one of the most moving nioments in the whole opera. The Ethiopian king Amonasro, finally, is no savage, but a royal leader consumed by an ardent love of his homeland.
In Harnoncourt's view, the Egyptian local colour in Aida is limited to the fact that "in the second half of the 19th century a type of international folk music evolved that can be observed in Dvořák as much as in Verdi. It includes pentatonic elements, as well as certain rhythms and instruments." Arioso and recitative are closely interwoven in Aida - during work on the score Verdi distanced himself from the cabaletta as a way of concluding an aria - with the result that contemporary critics accused hirn of following in Wagner's footsteps. Harnoncourt finds it impossible to agree with this assessment: "Even if Wagner had never existed, Verdi would have hit upon similar solutions."