Aida will be staged on a major scale at the OVO Arena Wembley next March
Next spring, Giuseppe Verdi’s celebrated opera, Aida, is coming to London with what’s being billed as “the largest opera production in the capital this century”. The show is set to bring together over 250 performers, a 60-piece orchestra and high tech digital projections for a very limited three-show run across two days.
Aida is a four-act tragedy that centres around the titular character, Aida, an Ethiopian princess imprisoned in Egypt, as she falls in love with General Radames. Ramades (who is is also loved by Amneris, an Egyptian princess who Aida serves) is then called to lead a war with Ethopia and we watch Aida as she confronts her love for both Ramades and her home country. The opera originally premiered alongside the opening of the Khedival Opera House in Cairo in 1871 and hasn’t been performed at a major scale in the UK for decades.
This production will be performed in the opera’s original Italian – there will be subtitles – and promises to be a memorable one. Expect a 72 square metre screen, a life-size puppet elephant controlled by six puppeteers, 578 costumes, surround sound and a 692 square metre River Nile that flows into the audience. With such an OTT production comes a matching price tag, so expect to pay at least £87.12 (or as much as £227.75) for a ticket. But, for fans of remarkable theatre, it sounds like this will be worth it.
Sat 23rd & Sun 24th March 2024
OVO Arena Wembley, Engineers Way, London HA9 0AA
aida-opera.live