It’s exactly three years since my last Aida, in a concert performance: an intense experience that brings the conductor face to face with the score which, since it is Verdi, is obviously perfect. And, as we’re talking about Aida, the composition (beyond perfect, bordering on sublime) takes on an incredible, inherent theatrical life of its own. The debate over concert performance versus staged opera is destined to last forever, to the great joy of theatres and artists, called upon to take part in what feels like a challenge. Think of the legendary, pharaonic productions of Aida at the Arena in Verona, and you will understand why Aida needs to be reduced to its essence whenever possible, revealing the musical beauty within the extravaganza, so evocative thanks to a prodigious palette of colours, allowing the singers (in this case, outstanding stars Anna Netrebko, Jonas Kaufmann and Luca Salsi) to make music alongside the musicians, I would say almost relishing the magnificent choral displays and triumphal marches, prelude to their moments of pure lyricism which are the hallmark of Aida. This opera is monumental and intimate at the same time, its theatricality is quintessential Verdi before the ultimate creative frenzy of Otello e Falstaff, with its esoteric perfume and sense of tragedy, and its parola scenica, supreme expression of the greatest man of theatre ever to come from Italy: in a word, Aida.