Background Notes
After Il trovatore, it seems that Giuseppe Verdi might have been ready to retire, much like his famous predecessor Gioachino Rossini had done two decades before. He had talked about it as early as the late 1840s, obviously worn down by pressure of his "galley years," churning out operas as a rapid rate. Clearly his productivity slowed in the 50s and 60s as his attention turned to the farming of his expanding estate, Sant‘ Agata. He was now financially independent, yet one suspects he couldn‘t quite shake the composing bug, or he simply had a laundry list of achievements still to be checked off. The most important of these was an unqualified success in Paris. His retouching of I Lombardi (to become Jérusalem) had missed the mark back in 1847, but Verdi persisted, signing a new contract with the Paris Opéra even as he was working on Il trovatore. But Les vêpres siciliennes (1855) also had failed to please and further ingrained the composer against an institution which he found to be tediously slow and ponderous. Simon Boccanegra (1857) might have been a stab at renewing the glory achieved by Il trovatore (both are based on plays by the same author) and Il ballo in maschera (1859) may have been an indirect tilt toward eventual production on the French stage — it was based on a libretto by Opéra doyen Eugène Scribe.
But the censorship issues that had so often plagued the composer‘s past works, reached their peak with Ballo, which in its original form featured the assassination of Swedish King Gustav III, generally a taboo subject for Italian despots. Again, this might have been Verdi‘s moment to call it quits, but tempted by a prestigious commission from the Russian court, he composed Il forza del destino (1862). Another proposed work from the Paris Opéra in sync with the 1867 World Exhibition gave him a renewed quest for victory, and in this instance he followed the art of French Grand Opera to a tee, producing a remarkable work, Don Carlos. Unfortunately the composer had been too zealous as his new opera ran 17 minutes over the allotted time (the suburbanites had to catch the last train), and he was forced to make a number of cuts. In the end the opera floundered as its blatant disregard for the clergy in Act IV caused the indignation of Spanish-born Empress Eugénie. For a third time, he had been disappointed in Paris.
Verdi had put a lot of work into the score of Don Carlos and was clearly frustrated, though the work would come to have a rich history in Italy. In the years that followed, he suffered several personal tragedies — his long-time benefactor and surrogate father, Antonio Barezzi, died in July 1867. The composer‘s longtime collaborator, Francesco Maria Piave, suffered a debilitating stroke, putting the librettist in a vegetative state that would last for another nine years. And in 1868, Italian opera‘s champion, Rossini, also passed. For this momentous occasion, Verdi tried to arrange a requiem mass to which several of Italy‘s leading composers would contribute a movement. The composer‘s friend and Genoese tenant, conductor Angelo Mariani, was put in charge of the project, and when it failed to reach fruition, Mariani was contemptuously held responsible.
Nonetheless, one of the more positive outcomes of Don Carlos is Verdi‘s new-found association with Camille du Locle, who had served as his librettist after the death of Joseph Méry. In 1870 du Locle became co-director of the Opéra-Comique and was keen on Verdi composing a work for that theater. Verdi traveled to Paris to check out the impresario‘s management of the Opéra‘s sister venue and toyed with some of the lighter fare du Locle sent his way, but was hesitant. Then an intriguing offer came his way via the Egyptian government. The Khedive, or viceroy, wanted a hymn from his favorite composer to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, scheduled for November 1869. Verdi refused, bluntly stating that he did not write "occasional pieces." A splendid new European-style performance site was also in the works, and the Khedive proposed a new opera for its opening. Again Verdi demurred, and the Cairo Opera House opened with a revival of Rigoletto just a few weeks after the Canal was unveiled (to a hymn with words and music set by Temistocle Solera, librettist for several of Verdi‘s early works, but no longer in the composer‘s good graces).
The Khedive wouldn‘t be dissuaded. He used du Locle‘s easy access to the prickly maestro and proposed yet another commission. A member of his staff, archeologist/Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, had drafted a scenario, a fiction based on elements from the country‘s distant past. Now Verdi‘s interest was peaked (threats of a similar offer made to Charles Gounod and Richard Wagner also may have spurred him on). He envisioned a grande boutique, an opera epic in scope, perhaps even capable of holding the stage of his nemesis, the Paris Opéra. Clearly he was bowing to the French trend toward Orientalism [evidenced by the then-recent works of Georges Bizet (Les pêcheurs de perles), Gounod (La reine de saba) and Giacomo Meyerbeer (L‘Africaine)]. At that time anything south of Pyrenees was considered exotic, as Bizet‘s Andalusian-set Carmen would later attest, and the Occident was fair game. Du Locle quickly traveled to St. Agata in June 1870 and tactically worked up a draft text in French with hopes of eventual production in his native land. But Verdi insisted the new opera be in Italian, and Antonio Ghislanzoni, who had touched up La forza del destino for its Italian premiere in 1869, was engaged as librettist.
Unabashedly, Verdi set his fee — 150,000 francs, four times what he had received for Don Carlos, payable in gold to be deposited at the Rothschild bank in Paris. Responding to political upheaval in France, the composer also added an out clause — if for some reason the Cairo production would be delayed, he would have the option to present the new opera in Italy after an interval of six months. The Khedive didn‘t flinch, and sent one third of the sum to the French bank post haste. Du Locle was dispatched to collect the fee.
As Verdi predicted, an external force was to intercede, impeding Aida‘s progress. Revolution in Spain had deposed Queen Isabella II in 1868, and the Spanish were looking for a new leader outside their borders. A cousin of Prussian King Wilhelm I had been proposed as a suitable candidate, but the French were already concerned over Prussian aggression after Austria‘s defeat in 1866 at the battle of Sadowa (Napoleon III had been sympathetic to the Austrians). Another turbulent factor was the capricious Empress Eugénie, who demanded her husband protect her indigenous soil from the Germans. Thus, the French hastily went into combat on July 19, 1870 and were easily trounced. As the Germans bore down on Paris, du Locle and Mariette were busily arranging the construction of the sets and costumes for Aida. Eventually the invaders surrounded the city and the siege of Paris, beginning on September 19, halted everything (though luckily, Verdi had just barely managed to get the balance of his fee), threatening the future of the new opera. Communications to the outside could only be made by balloon.
Verdi was patient at first. Aida was set to premiere during the month of January 1871, but this was no longer possible due to the work stoppage in Paris. In retrospect, it was to the opera‘s benefit, for it allowed the composer to tinker with his orchestration over the spring and summer, rendering Aida its meticulously crafted aural qualities. But eventually the composer was ready to move on. The Cairo affair was merely an money-making venture — he has never intended to travel there for the premiere. His eye was set for the La Scala premiere, his "official" return after a self-imposed 25-year absence due to the theater?s shoddy production values (Forza‘s appearance three years earlier had merely been a remounting). He cited his escape clause in the contract, but the Khedive‘s representatives viewed the war as being a force majeure, thus invalidating the codicil.
In the end, the composer held off, but not for very long. The Cairo premiere took place on December 24, 1871, to great acclaim. Verdi‘s La Scala production occurred scarcely two months later, in February, again to a wildly enthusiastic audience (ticket prices for advance sales became a matter of market speculation). As usual, Verdi scrutinized the opera‘s rehearsal, with specific attention given to sets, costumes and casting. For his first Aida, Verdi chose soprano Teresa Stolz, who had already sung in the first Italian productions of Don Carlos in Bologna and La forza del destino in Milan. Likewise, he carefully oversaw productions in Parma, Padua and Naples.
In his letters, Verdi consistently bewailed every performance venue. He dreaded proposals from Vienna, Berlin, and not surprisingly, Paris, which were eager to produce the new work. Vacillating between maintaining absolute control and letting his new opera go free, the composer continued to have a hand in nearly every Aida production, going as far as to conduct the Vienna premiere himself. In Paris, naturally, Verdi was especially uneasy even though Aida had been composed in part on the French model. As previously noted, his history with the Opéra made him skittish, yet he still coveted that Parisian success. His French publisher, Léon Escudier, happened to be running the Théātre Italien, and urged Verdi to mount Aida at that venue. Though fearing the Italian theater lacked sufficient resources (particularly for the triumphal scene), Verdi eventually relented and traveled to Paris to oversee and conduct the production in 1876. A favorable response led him to finally acquiesce to the Opéra, where Aida was finally seen in its full glory on March 22, 1880. At age 66, Verdi finally had his triumph in Paris.
In spite of Aida‘s widespread appeal (it is prevented from being among the top ten due to the large scale resources required to stage the piece), there was one person who didn‘t care for the new opera and demanded a refund. Shortly after the Parma premiere, Prospero Bertani was bold enough to write the composer directly, demanding not only the cost of his ticket, but reimbursement of train fare and dinner. Slightly amused, the composer asked Ricordi to write a check for everything but the meal — which he would have had anyway at home. Verdi requested a signed remittance from Bertani for the sum promising that the latter would never again subject himself to the "horrible specters" of his music, unless the composer personally authorized it and covered the expenses. Bertani happily produced the necessary documentation. Verdi then instructed his publisher to print the letter in the Italian newspapers ("as many as you like"), which caused the poor man to become persona non grata everywhere he went. Signor Bertani implored the composer to revive his reputation, but in a flash of his acute mean streak (and affront to his ego), Verdi wouldn‘t budge.
Courtesy of The Minnesota Opera
