Verdi: Aida - Anna Netrebko at Salzburg Festival

“Anna Netrebko storms Salzburg”, wrote the New York Times about her highly anticipated debut as Aida.

In the history of the Salzburg Festival, Giuseppe Verdi’s popular opera Aida was performed only once, in 1979 staged and conducted by Herbert von Karajan. For its return the Salzburg Festival assembled a superb artistic team, making this production the most sought after and over-booked in the Festival’s history.

The supreme cast was led by Anna Netrebko in the title role, directed by Iranian-born New York based visual artist Shirin Neshat and conducted by the world’s finest Verdi conductor, Riccardo Muti.

“Anna Netrebko storms Salzburg”, wrote the New York Times about her highly anticipated debut as Aida, while the Neue Zürcher Zeitung praised Netrebko’s “perfection and immaculacy”. Francesco Meli, among the finest Verdi tenors of our time, scores as “vocally excellent” Radamès (Der Standard). Ekaterina Semenchuk, the “primadonna among the mezzo-sopranos” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) stuns in the role of Amneris and Luca Salsi, one of today’s most sought after baritones, is “a luxury” (Corriere della Sera) as Amonasro. Riccardo Muti “creates effects you didn’t quite think possible (…). The Vienna Philharmonic plays for him with astonishing virtuosity: strings of tactile fullness; tangy winds; bursts of ideally round and peppery brasses.” (New York Times). Shirin Neshat, who won a Silver Lion as Best Director at the Venice Film Festival, is working across various visual mediums such as photography, video installation and film - her debut work as an opera director picks up Neshat’s own experience of repression and exile.

Original title Giuseppe Verdi: Aida
Genre Opera
Recording location Salzburg Festival, August 2017
Duration appr. 155 mins
Production Company A co-production of ORF, NHK, UNITEL and ZDF in cooperation with ARTE, Wiener Philharmoniker and Salzburg Festival
Composer Giuseppe Verdi
Orchestra / Band Wiener Philharmoniker
Conductor Riccardo Muti
Choir Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor
Chorus Master Ernst Raffelsberger
Stage Director Shirin Neshat
Soloist Anna Netrebko, Francesco Meli, Roberto Tagliavini, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Dmitry Belosselskiy