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Rating: In a civilized country, albums like this would be banned by law. Outlawed, as if we were in one of those places where if you don't respect the line at the bus stop, people look at you as if you have the plague. Aida. Oh, right, the operas, that music where you can't understand the words and women always have dresses that reveal their breasts. Aida. In Peppino's plans, his last thing. He'll have to change his plans, but that's another story. The last music, the last speech. Which is not made with words. Aida, in a civilized country, would have been titled Amneris. Daughter of the pharaoh. And in love. Who in the final act pleads for the life of Radames. Who loves another. But she does everything. Regardless. She tries with reason, with words, with blood, with class, with threats. She tries tearing your heart out.
But there's nothing to be done.
She’ll have to witness his end, powerless and desperate. Listening to the priests. Love, even Alfredo's love is taken from her. (Ah, no, that’s another opera. Ah, yes, maybe).
Maria singing Amneris is one of those things opera doesn't give you. Maria-Amneris you’d remember the last act as one of the most beautiful things you've ever heard. In jazz, everything you can think of is there. And even more. In opera, no. You can only imagine it.
In a civilized country, a certain march, which you all know, in the second act, would be the national anthem, with fond regards to the Marseillaise, to the land of the freedom, the home for the brave, and also to those fools who propose Va' pensiero. See if there's anything more exhilarating. Some music you can be prouder of.
In a civilized country, this opera would be called Radames, who loves and fights, and dies. For love. And wins, in some way, because he doesn't die alone. Because his love comes to him in the tomb. Of course, he’s a tenor. It takes him a while to understand things. But then he understands. And he goes all the way.
In this country here, instead, this opera is called Aida. And it's called that because Peppino decided so. Because it was supposed to be his last thing. Aida is a slave, and she was a queen. And she loves. And what she is now, apart from love, she doesn't know. They’ll tell her you're not a slave, you're not a handmaid, you're a friend. But the one who says this is her rival. They’ll tell her you're not my daughter, you're the pharaohs' slave. They’ll tell her everything. She only knows she loves. That she'll never see her land again. That she doesn't know who she is anymore. That she's there. That she can't do anything but lose. No matter what happens. Peppino, his last music, doesn’t write it for a heroine. Not even a beautiful and tragic heroine like Amneris, like Violetta. No, he writes it for a woman simply lost. You could say very human. Full of nostalgia, full of love. Conscious of losing. And not even proud of it. A few years later, Desdemona, and I’ll never forgive her for that, a few minutes before dying, will start with a wonderful Ave Maria. And the first thing she’ll say is pray for those who bow their heads under outrage, under wicked fate. Aida has bowed her head. Peppino, what in his plans was supposed to be his last music, titles it to her. Who bows her head, under wicked fate. That’s all. And it's no surprise that in Aida's leitmotif there's an oboe. Like for Violetta. But Aida will never have Violetta's strength. Aida has bowed her head. She ends, with her love. Not out of heroism. But because she doesn't know who she is. Except that she loves Radames. That's all. Nothing else. Huh, maybe that's why Peppino dedicates it to her, this opera. And not to Amneris, or Radames, or even to the Suez Canal, as he pretended. To Aida, who doesn't know who she is, only knows she loves.
Well, an opera like this, if you have to sing it, you approach it respectfully. In a civilized country. In 1950 or thereabouts, in Mexico, Maria is Aida, Radames is the KING. Eh, how to say. At the end of the second act, the one with the triumphal march, Peppino didn't write it, but there's a high E-flat, and someone does it. And they ask Maria if she wants to do it. She replies I’ll do it, but you give me a contract for a year in exchange. They say no. Then - the rehearsals start - the conductor is somewhat annoying to everyone. It happens. And so, the singers agree. And she, that E-flat, without telling the conductor, hits it (minute 4:51). She hits it at your face, someone would say. When I hear it, every time I hear it, that E-flat there, I turn around, towards the source of the sound, and say damn. I never say damn. It's just that then there, on stage, there’s also the KING. And he hears that E-flat. And in the following act, Peppino didn’t write it, but just because he was distracted, he hits back a nice high note at your face. That when you hear it, that high note there, you turn towards the source of the sound, and say damn. I, damn, never say it. And I don't even know exactly what a high E-flat is. I know that beyond the showings of strength, and at a distance of more than fifty years from when they sang, of more than a hundred from when it was written, I can't stop listening to this stuff. And feeling the chills, every time I hear it.
So, in a civilized country, albums like this would be banned by law. They give you strange ideas, certainly dangerous, certainly not correct. Like being proud. In a certainly non-prevalent way, no. In a way that only Peppino. That only Maria. That only the KING.
In this country here, I turn, and press the play button again. Yes. A little more. And to be honest, I don't care much about being proud. I only care about how much love there is inside here. Whether it's Peppino, Maria, the KING, I don’t know.
And to remain speechless.
In a civilized country, it would be banned by law.
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