For the long-jumping song that Annie sings in The Puzzle of the Sphinx, click here.
Aida (sometimes stylized as Aïda) is a tragic opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's now-destroyed Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini. Today the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world.
It is the music that was used in Little Red Rockethood and The Puzzle of the Sphinx.
Summary[]
In Season 2[]
In Little Red Rockethood, Aida was used to sing and help the Little Einsteins get the rocket soup back from Big Jet.
In The Puzzle of the Sphinx, Aida was used as the main theme to get the runaway puzzle pieces to build the Sphinx's Magic Puzzle.
Structure[]
The Aida opera is structured in four acts.
Aida[]
- Act 1
- Scene 1: A hall in the King's palace; through the rear gate the pyramids and temples of Memphis are visible
- Scene 2: Inside the Temple of Ptah
- Act 2
- Scene 1: The chamber of Amneris
- Scene 2: The grand gate of the city of Thebes
- Act 3
- Scene: On the banks of the Nile, near the Temple of Isis
- Act 4
- Scene 1: A hall in the Temple of Justice. To one side is the door leading to Radamès' prison cell
- Scene 2: The lower portion of the stage shows the vault in the Temple of Ptah; the upper portion represents the temple itself
Episode Appearances[]
Season 2[]
Songs adapted from Aida[]
Little Red Rockethood[]
The Puzzle of the Sphinx[]
Trivia[]
- Aida has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886 at the New York Metropolitan Opera.
- Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, but the Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz argues that the source is actually the Temistocle Solera.
In popular culture[]
- The 1952 Broadway musical My Darlin' Aida, set on a plantation in Tennessee in the first year of the American Civil War, is based on the opera and uses Verdi's music.
- The opera has been adapted for motion pictures on several occasions, most notably in a 1953 production which starred Lois Maxwell as Amneris and Sophia Loren as Aida, and a 1987 Swedish production.
- In both cases, the lead actors lip-synched to recordings by actual opera singers. In the case of the 1953 film, Ebe Stignani sang as Amneris, while Renata Tebaldi sang as Aida.
- The opera's story, but not its music, was used as the basis for a 1998 musical of the same name written by Elton John and Tim Rice.
- The opera has been portrayed in the 2001 Italian animated film Aida of the Trees (Aida degli alberi). The characters are seen as anthropomorphic creatures between the fictional kingdoms of Alborea and Petra as the star-crossed lovers must find a way to unify their worlds while facing off against the evil high priest Ramfis.
- The triumphal march in the opera is used as a graduation march in Latin America and the Philippines which is also called the Martsang Pandangál (Filipino for "Honours March").
- The piece is also one of three compositions (the other two being the Spanish anthem Marcha Real and the French anthem La Marseillaise) that influenced the Philippine National Anthem, according to its composer, Julián Felipe.
- Verdi's triumphal march has also become the background of many a popular football chant, especially in Italy.
