Aida is a musical based on the opera of the same name written by Antonio Ghislanzoni with music by Giuseppe Verdi. It has music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls, and David Henry Hwang, and was originally produced by Hyperion Theatricals.
Logo from the Broadway production
Aida 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 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; at New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, Aida has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886. Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, but Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz argues that the source is actually Temistocle Solera.
Cover of a very early vocal score, c. 1872
Radamès (Giuseppe Fancelli) and Aida (Teresa Stolz) in act 4, scene 2 of the 1872 La Scala European première (drawing by Leopoldo Metlicovitz)
Verdi conducting the 1880 Paris Opera premiere
A scene from the Israeli Opera production performed at Masada in 2011