Opera Verdi Europa Revives the "Other" Aida Feb. 5 at Eisenhower Auditorium
January 14, 2005
A long, long time before Elton John and Tim Rice, the creators of Broadway's Aida, attained fame, fortune and knighthood, Giuseppe Verdi, a famous Italian man of music, composed the opera Aida. The Broadway Aida is all well and good, but that's not what you'll see if you attend Aida at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 5, in Penn State's Eisenhower Auditorium.
What you will see and hear at the Center for the Performing Arts presentation is Opera Verdi Europa, the company that impressed many local opera enthusiasts in its initial visit to Nittany Valley last season in La Bohème. Set against an ancient war between Egypt and Ethiopia, the four-act opera concerns the love between Aida, enslaved daughter of the Ethiopian king, and Radamès, an Egyptian warrior.
Section one and two tickets for the University Park performance are on sale now at $41 and $34 for an adult; $21 and $16 for a full-time University Park student; and $25 and $18 for a person 18 and younger. For tickets and information, log on to www.cpa.psu.edu or phone 863-0255. Outside the local calling area, dial 1-800-ARTS-TIX. Tickets are also available at Eisenhower Auditorium, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays; Penn State Tickets Downtown in the lobby of State College's Penn State Downtown Theatre Center, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday; HUB-Robeson Center Information Desk, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays; and Bryce Jordan Center, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
Aida, which premiered on Christmas Eve 1871 in Cairo, is so beautifully written–for voices and orchestra–that it is widely regarded as the culmination of Verdi's transformation of grand opera.
Opera Verdi Europa, a Bulgarian company, made its first appearance in the United States in fall 2003. For most Americans, mention of Bulgaria may not conjure notions of fertile ground for opera. But the southeastern European country, which borders Greece and Turkey, boasts a surprisingly rich opera tradition.
Established in 1996 by Ivan Kyurkchiev, Opera Verdi Europa creates productions combining the best elements of opera in Bulgaria and the rest of Europe. In addition to collaborating with Bulgarian opera theatres and symphony orchestras, Opera Verdi Europa works with opera houses from Romania, Hungary, Moldova, Ukraine and Russia.
Opera Verdi Europa's performance of Aida features the company's orchestra. Aida is sung in its original Italian libretto enhanced by English supertitles.
Drs. Gay D. Dunne and James H. Dunne sponsor the performance. WPSU-FM is the media partner. Artistic Viewpoints, sponsored by the Center for the Performing Arts Community Advisory Council, provides insight from an artist or expert perspective and is offered free to interested ticket holders in the Eisenhower Auditorium Conference Room one hour before the performance. Free audio description, which is especially helpful to patrons with sight loss, is available at no charge to ticket holders.
Contact: Laura Sullivan, 814-863-6379