The visuals were created in response to the scenography assignment for Verdi’s opera Aida. Set design for the opera Aida is the main project in the Scene design course in the Master studies of Scene architecture and design at the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad.
Aida is an opera in four acts, made by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, which deals with the tragic love between an Ethiopian slave Aida and Egyptian army leader Radamès, engaged to Pharaoh’s daughter Amneris. The drama of the opera takes place in the love triangle that is Aida-Radamès-Amneris, during the war between Ethiopia and Egypt. Representatives of the two conflicting nations, Aida and Radamès, despite circumstances, develop their secret romance that ends in their tragic deaths. The whole plot was set inside and in the vicinity of the Memphis City Palace, but in this scenography, that palace was interpreted as a prison. The prison was chosen as an environment because at the level of essential meaning it indicates that all the characters of the opera reside in a kind of prison, whether it being a true physical space or a mental one. For this reason, all the scenes (the scene of the palace interior – the first act, the scenes of the sanctuary – the second act, the scene on the Nile – the third act and the scene in the tomb – the fourth act) are presented as different changes in the ambience of the prison.
Act I, scene 1 – Radamès and Ramfis
Act I, scene 2 – The Temple of Vulcan
Act III – Scene at the Nile
Act IV, scene 1 – The Courtroom
Act IV, scene 2 – The End
Author: Aleksandra Rakić, BSc of Scene Architecture, Technique and Design
Master studies in Theatre and Urban Spectacle, University of Montpellier
