Aida I am a musical fan. I admit it. I own 4 different soundtracks to Les Miserables (one in French!), I know all of the words to La Vie Boheme from Rent, and love to just burst into songs from Cabaret. But nothing, except a few scattered Disney soundtracks, have the feeling I get from Aida. Incidentally, Aida: the musical was composed by Tim Rice, and the lyrics were written by Elton John -- the same team that composed the score to The Ling King. That's where the underlying Hakuna Mata feeling comes from. Aida is based on an opera. Anne Rice fans will recognize it as being the opera the characters go see in The Mummy. The plot of the musical is quite simple, though I'm not sure how true it is to the opera, as I've never seen it. It starts with a man and woman in the Egypt section of a museum. They look at each other as if they know each other and then they fade away and a mummy/statue comes to life and starts singing about love stories. Back in Ancient Eygpt, there is an explorer/soldier named Radames. His father, Zoser, has a very cool staff with a giant Eye of Ra on it, but that's pretty irrelevant. Zoser has arranged for Radames to marry Princess Amneris, who will become pharaoh when he sick father passes away. Radames wants to run around and explore all of his life, not be stuck in some palace. Meanwhile, Eygpt has captured Nubians and is using them as slaves. One of the palace slaves happens to be none other than Aida, the Princess of Nubia. Another is Mereb, whose father used to work for the King of Nubia. He recognizes Aida. Aida's people persuade her to save them from their living Hell. She meets Radames in the palace and they fall in love. Amneris is blind to it. Eventually, a plot to help Aida escape is foiled and Amneris realizes Radames never loved her. Radames and Aida are sentanced to death for treason, but as an act of mercy (if you can call it that) Amneris arranges for them to be buried alive together. Fast forward to present day, we see the two people in the museum again. They are, presumably, the reincarnations of Aida and Radames. They go off together and the curtain falls. People who love Egypt may be slightly offended at the lack of historical content. The clothes do not look Egyptian at all. But it's fun to listen to. For instance, Amneris has a song about how she loves her clothes ("My Strongest Suit") and Adam Pascal (Roger in the original cast of Rent) takes on the role of Radames. Half way through his first song, "Fortune Favors the Brave," I expected him to burst into One Song Glory. Despite the powerful vocals from all three leads, the lyrics are not always top of the line. They don't give Miss Saigon a run for its money, but I suppose they could compete with Andrew Lloyd Weber. Aida's song "Easy as Life" is very strong, for example. Still, you'll find yourself singing along and enjoying the catchy music. And some of the songs are really well written, even if others don't make much sense lyrically. Luckily, it's cheap, as it's only on 1 CD. |