The Grand Production of Verdi’s Aida, realized under the artistic direction of Giuseppe Raffa is perhaps one of the single greatest achievements of this Italian orchestra conductor, artistic director producer and that contributed immensely to the universal popularization of this already world wide loved opera title and consequentially opera itself.
Raffa was inspired by the great production of this opera that had been staged in venues such as the Arena di Verona or by the Pyramids of Giza.
But these large and complex productions were static and not every one could have the chance to attend to their performance, strengthening that idea or notion held by masses of people all lover the world, and against which Raffa has always struggled, that opera is reserved but to a few.
While assuring an impeccable artistic quality trough his technical and artistic knowledge, and assured by the collaboration of Mauro Bolognini (stage director), Tito Varisco (stage designer) and Luisa Spinatelli (costume designer) Raffa realized a grand production of Aida that could efficiently, organizationally and economically speaking, be brought on tour. And under his artistic direction, that included the role of orchestra director, this grand and spectacular production was stage in the most important venues of some of the world most important cities (Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, Toronto Ski Dome, Tokyo’s Dome, Sydney’s Football Stadium, London’s Earl Court, Zurich’s Stadt Halle, Munich’s Olympia Halle, Berlin’s Arena , Madrid’s Plaza de Las Ventas, Barcelona’s Palau Saint Jordi, Lisbon’s National Football Stadium to mention just the main ones) in front of enthusiastic audiences of up to and over 40,000 per night.
These performances featured not only stages as wide as 100 meters, an artificial sphinx 18 meters tall, as many as over 500 performing artists and extras on stage an a parade of exotic animals, but also the outstanding performances of great soloists singers such as Katia, Ricciarelli, Bruna Baglioni, Grace Bumbry, Nicola, Martinucci, Giuseppe Giacomini, Piero Cappuccilli, Juan Pons, Roberto Scandiuzzi and many more.
Because of the sheer size of the venues where some of the performances were held a sound amplification system was necessary to extend the music and singing to the entire audiences. State of the art, digital sound systems, such as the Mayer system by James Locke DECCA Company or the Vidosque, were realized purposely for this production and then saw widespread use in other large, live performance events.
