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End of Act two (Intermission). From this point on, everything in the Opera started to slide downhill.
Amonoasro (Aïda's dad) was one mean dude, (sort of like Bin Laden). It was quite evident that his intention was to get the Egyptians by their gonads. He took his daughter aside and made a decided attempt to get her to cozy up to Radames and milk him for military secrets. He threw God, family, country and everything in his guilt book at her to do it. He finally managed to break her down and get her to promise to attempt a liaison with our hero.
In the mean time Amneris was like a cat in heat. She seemed determined to get Radames into her bed. She asked her Dad (the King) to give Radames to her. The king seemed to think that this might be a pretty good deal both for his family and for Egypt. His thinking, If he could marry Amneris to Radames, then he would be able to eventually set Radames up in the king business. As a king Radames should be able to get his daughter (Amneris) pregnant and sire a bunch of Egyptian heroes. This would make him one proud grand pop, or whatever pharaohs with grand children are called.
The marriage never happened, Aïda managed to seduce Radames into revealing important military secrets. Amneris, just happened to be in the neighborhood and secretly listened to Radames spill his guts to Aïda. She blew the whistle on them and the end result being that they killed Amonasoro, Aïda's father (One really awesome Baritone). They also put Radames in chains, but somehow Aïda escaped.
The last act was the trial. Radames (despite urging from Amneris) refused to defend himself. It seemed pretty obvious to me that he must have had some sort of a death wish. As a result of his "brilliant" non defense, he was found guilty and given a death sentence. It appeared to me, that the Egyptians wanted to do things right. They didn't just want to hang him, or chop off his head; evidently that did not strike them as being meaningful enough. The King or one of his buddies had the idea that that it would be lots more fun to wall our hero up inside a tomb. I am sure that everyone thought that this would be really cool and give Radames the punishment that he richly deserved. Radames was taken to the Valley of the Dead (or wherever it is that they have their tombs) and the guards walled him up in a place that we know was both cold and dark.
Poor Radames was very unhappy. He turned to the audience and told us all how sorry and sad that this made him. He let all of us know that he was prepared to die alone, alone in a cold dark tomb. Lo and behold, we suddenly found out that Aïda had been hiding in the tomb all along, and "golly" he did not have to die alone. In the final scene, the two of them sing about their love for each other. It was apparent to all that the two would die of either starvation or suffocation, which ever came first, and they would do so with song..
We were blessed with English subtitles that were flashed up above the stage.
The last scene was really quite interesting.
They embraced. Aïda sang and sang and sang.
She faced the audience and sang..
The subtitle read: "I love you".
Radames Embraced Aïda and sang, and sang.
He faced the audience and sang some more.
The subtitle read: "I love you too"...
So much for my Opera experience. It allowed me to feel cultured. I did worry about having to rent a tux. I later found out that the only people who wore them were either ushers or in the orchestra. My shingles hurt, my butt was sore from sitting 3_ hours, everyone in the story, that I liked, died. I would say it was a real bummer, yet strangely enough, I still felt uplifted. I went to the opera. I actually experienced "culture" and I really felt the better person for it.
You know, I might just go to the Opera again.
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