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Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Verdi: Aida
Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:
Get ready to hear tenor Jonas Kaufmann's voice again this Sunday, this time in the monumental operatic role of Radames. Giuseppe Verdi's Aida (1871) has always been so popular because of the grand stage spectacle it presents. Aida is the nineteenth-century predecessor of those twentieth-century Hollywood movie epic blockbusters like The Ten Commandments.
The Sony CD recording I broadcast on Sunday, December 1, 1991 originated in the Met's staged production of this warhorse of the repertoire as recorded at the Manhattan Center in May, 1990. The superstar tenor Placido Domingo portrayed Radames opposite Aprille Millo in the title role.
In the new studio production for Warner Classics Kaufmann was again paired very favorably with soprano Anja Harteros. This was the first time Kaufmann sang Radames, but Kaufmann and Harteros have sung together in other Verdi operas. All the musical resources to record a landmark Aida for the twenty-first century were drawn together in Rome in February of 2015. The singing cast is backed by the Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia , under the direction of Antonio Pappano. The Italian State Police Band augmented the Santa Cecilia orchestra in the opera's supercolossal moments. The four acts of Aida are spread out over three Warner Classics compact discs.