Aida

Verdi's Aida is set in ancient Egypt, and its scale is genuine — there are triumphal marches, massed armies, and enough spectacle to justify the reputation. But the opera at its center is intimate: an Ethiopian princess named Aida has been taken as a slave to the Egyptian court. She is in love with Radamès, the Egyptian general sent to conquer her country. Her father, the Ethiopian king, is also a prisoner. The famous trumpet march in Act 2 is one of the most recognizable passages in all of opera — four minutes of pure theatrical power — and what comes after it is a sealed tomb and two people choosing to die together rather than live apart. Verdi wrote Aida in 1871, and the score balances the monumental and the personal with a precision he had spent his entire career building toward.