Aida: Disney's back burner musical and How I remember the story Fondly · 2:07am Jun 10th, 2020
For those of you who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, I am referring to the 1998 Disney Produced musical Aida. It was such an amazing story and I only have the vague memory of hearing about a performance in like 2001. I recall being interested, but then forgetting. Now the original Opera can be traced back to Late19th century Italy. I have a more prominent memory of the story itself because I remember reading (an abridged version) the story in like 4th grade! Seriously I wasn't actually supposed to be looking into the 5th grade Open Court Book (see picture) because we had our own books to worry about (see picture). Yet I had finished my work early and being the quiet kid I was, I decided to read silently for a while while the rest of my class worked.
(5th grade Reading books)
(4th grade Reading books)
Now in the 5th grade book I came across the story of Aida. The story goes as follows:
The Egyptians have captured and enslaved Aida, an Ethiopian princess. An Egyptian military commander, Radamès, struggles to choose between his love for her and his loyalty to the King of Egypt. To complicate the story further, the King's daughter Amneris is in love with Radamès, although he does not return her feelings.
Seems kinda pathetic right? Absolutely NOT! The story once you get into it completely is absolutely stunning! And put into respect, the Elton John and Tim Rice musical does just the right amount of Justice combining story with music and visuals. While I've never seen the musical myself (although I have wanted to SO many times), I still say Disney should consider doing exactly what they're doing with Hamilton on Disney+ with Aida. To help with a visual aid, I'll leave the first 4 songs off the original cast recordings below:
