Lyric Opera of Kansas City: Aida

Lyric Opera of Kansas City: Aida at Muriel Kauffman Theatre - Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

Radames fights for Egypt, but the enslaved woman he loves is the daughter of his defeated enemy. Aida turns conquest into catastrophe when an Ethiopian princess finds herself held captive in Egypt, watching the Egyptian general she adores claim victory over her own people while another princess—Amneris, daughter of Egypt's king—schemes to claim him for herself.

Giuseppe Verdi's score gives voice to impossible choices through arias that lay bare what each character stands to lose. Aida must weigh her love for Radames against loyalty to her father and her homeland threatened by the conflict. Amneris burns with her own desire for the general, and Verdi's music captures the fury of a woman who will not be denied. The chorus swells with the grandeur of ancient empires in collision, while intimate moments reveal the cost of choosing one devotion over another.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City brings this new local production to the Muriel Kauffman Theatre, sung in Italian with English projected translations. Conductor Gerard Schwarz and director Keturah Stickann lead a staging built on dramatic sets and costumes that conjure the splendor and brutality of war between nations. Antonio Ghislanzoni's libretto keeps the focus tight: love for an enemy is more than romance—it's treason.

Get Aida tickets and hear Verdi give impossible loyalty a voice.