Seattle Opera's "Aida" promises to be a big, yet intimate, production

Opera doesn't get any grander than this.

In the typical operatic duet, according to George Bernard Shaw, who was a brilliant music critic before he turned to the relatively undemanding trade of playwright, the tenor and the soprano "repeatedly call attention to the fact that at last they meet again." There certainly are operas as simplistic as that. But in the works of Giuseppe Verdi you will generally find a much more complex and challenging setup.

"Aida," which Seattle Opera will present starting Saturday for the first time in 16 years, is a classic example of the Italian master's breadth and depth of dramatic interests.

Verdi was a public man. No stranger to passion in his personal life, a successful farmer and a sometimes ruthless businessman, he also became a figurehead in his country's struggle for independence, and rose from the ranks of local government to become one of the new nation's senators. So it is not surprising that, in his choice of operatic subjects, the conflict between private concerns and the pressure of political necessity usually plays a leading role.

For most opera-lovers, the first thought at the mention of "Aida" is likely of the triumphal procession in Act II, with its unforgettable march tune blazoned forth on two sets of trumpets to accompany the entrance of the conquering hero with his victorious troops and their captives. This public scene, admittedly, with its full-throated chorus "Glory to Egypt and to Isis" and its scintillating and picturesque ballet, is a central and vital element in the dramatic arc of the work. In 1870 — the same year in which Italy finally achieved unification — the work was commissioned by the Khedive of Egypt as part of his project to bring glory to the newly opened Cairo Opera House. It amply fulfilled this grandiose plan when it was premiered there in December of the following year.

Yet, despite all of its big moments and the hordes of extras it brings on stage, this is an opera that begins and ends in the hushed realm of love and of tragic doom. And even while the scene fills with the panoply of military might, the personal drama cannot for a moment be forgotten: Amneris and Aida are locked in competition for the love of Radamès, and the capture of Aida's father portends another searing conflict for her, which will be played out in one of the opera's greatest scenes.

The story

The action takes place in Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs. Aida, captured in a previous war between Egypt and her native Ethiopia, is now the slave of the Egyptian princess Amneris. Both of them love Radamès, a captain in the Egyptian army. Under threat of invasion by the resurgent Ethiopians, the Egyptians appoint Radamès commander of their army.

In Act II, the Egyptians celebrate their victory. Among their captives is Amonasro, Aida's father — but he warns her not to betray his identity as the king of Ethiopia, for he plans to work in secret for an uprising of his people. Aida's spirit is further tormented when the king rewards Radamès for his victory with the promise of his daughter Amneris' hand in marriage — to Amneris' delight, but to the consternation of both Aida and Radamès, who are secretly but devotedly in love.

Act III centers on the crucial scene in which Amonasro tells Aida she can save her country by finding out from Radamès, who is again to command the Egyptian army in a planned invasion of Ethiopia, what route his troops plan to follow. At first she indignantly refuses. But when her father repudiates her as a traitor — "You are not my daughter!" — she reluctantly agrees. Radamès is tricked into revealing the secret. Amneris and the chief priest Ramfis emerge from the temple of Isis, Radamès is arrested and in the confusion Amonasro and Aida escape.

On trial for his unwitting betrayal of a state secret, Radamès does not defend himself, for believing Aida to be dead, he no longer wishes to live. Despite Amneris' passionate pleas to the priests for mercy, he is condemned to be walled up alive in the vault beneath the altar of the god Phtha. The final scene is played on a split stage. Below, Radamès is astonished to find that Aida, who foresaw what his punishment would be, has secreted herself in the vault to die with him. Above, in the temple, while priests and priestesses chant in honor of the god, the grief-stricken Amneris prays to Isis to grant Radamès peace and receive him into heaven.

The staging

Conducted by Riccardo Frizza in his Seattle Opera debut, this "Aida" will not offend its audience with any contemporary "updating" of story or scenery. Sumptuous sets from the San Diego Opera and costumes from the Dallas Opera, designed by Michael Yeargan and Peter J. Hall, respectively, will be the setting for a thoroughly traditional production by Robin Guarino — evidently Seattle Opera's Egypt specialist, since her last directing assignment with the company was back in 2006, for Handel's "Julius Caesar," set in Egypt.

We can thus expect a full treatment of the opera's public side, with plenty of pageantry and lavish ballet scenes along the lines of the Parisian grand-opera tradition to which "Aida" belongs. And yet success in "Aida" depends less on such "effects" than on the quality of three or four singers — or singing actors, it is better to say, since if Aida, Amneris, Radamès and Amonasro do not convince us as living, breathing, suffering human beings, the finest singing in the world will fall short of making the opera the overwhelming experience it can be.

This production's first-night cast offers an Aida, in Lisa Daltirus, who already showed with her Tosca last season that she can touch the heart as well as she can caress the ear, and the Amneris is Stephanie Blythe, as thrilling a dramatic actress as any among today's rich crop of mezzo-sopranos. In Ana Lucrecia Garcia and Luretta Bybee, moreover, the alternating cast fields two artists who promise to be scarcely less notable exponents of those two roles. And the male leads look like a suitably imposing team.

Whatever else you expect when you go to see and hear Seattle Opera's new "Aida," you will surely go home with your mind's ear full of the love, regret and yet calm resignation of Radamès' and Aida's final duet — as profoundly affecting a love-death in the Italian manner as Wagner's Teutonic one in "Tristan und Isolde."

Grand opera doesn't get any more intimate, or more moving, than this.