Aida: finding the meaning in melodic shapes

The melodies in Verdi's Aida were not constructed by their composer merely for abstract musical pleasure alone; they provide insights into the psychology of the characters who sing them. Their implications are cross-cultural and cross-generational. They're worth examining, so here's a survey of the most intriguing examples.

Verdi: composer of melodies with meaning

CELESTE AIDA

Radames' sole aria comes just a minute and a half into Act I, scene i. Unlike "Questo o quella", the Duke's opening solo in Rigoletto, "Celeste Aida" is no warm-up piece for the tenor's voice. It's a challenge even for dramatic tenors, thanks to two features:

• Verdi's marking of pianississumo (very very soft) on the final note, a high B flat. Perhaps one tenor in 500 will attempt this live in performance. (The tenor Helge Rosvaenge, singing in German translation croons the ending as written in this 1938 recording.
• The opening theme consists of several phrases with an ascending motion that lies awkwardly for all but experienced, highly trained voices with facility in the passaggio: 

But this theme, so simple, so songlike, is much more than "ear candy". The text of the aria refers to the skies; he calls her "heavenly Aida" and promises her "a throne near the sun" (with the clear subtext of the Sun god Amun-Ra). Thus, most of the vocal lines sweep upward to reflect his preoccupation with celestial images, as if "reaching for the skies" (as lawmen used to say in TV Westerns).

On another aspect of the aria, we observe that Radames is not a deep thinker. The chief reason he wants to lead Egypt into battle with Ethiopia is 

"To return to you, my sweet Aida,

decked with the victor’s laurels,
to say. “I fought, I won for you!”

The irony of impressing her with his military prowess by slaughtering her countrymen does not appear to have registered with him. His bravery exceeds his sensitivity at this point.

RITORNA VINCITOR

And here's some more irony: for a split-second, being carried away by the excitement of Radames' investiture as military commander, Aida actually IS impressed with his military glory. The difference, of course, is that this irony immediately hits her like a gut-punch. "Ritorna vincitor" is a soliloquy during which she comes to realize that hers is a no-win situation; no outcome of the coming battle will bring her happiness. The music is a roller-coaster of conflicted emotions, totally "through-composed" with each section set to new musical ideas.

It's the final section that blows my mind.

This is when Aida, feeling doomed and out of control, lifts a prayer to the gods. "Numi, pietà del mio soffrir!" (Gods, take pity on my suffering). I would draw your attention to the vocal line Verdi gives these words:

Try something: sing the first four bars out loud. If it sounds familiar, there's a good reason. For comparison's sake, now sing these children's songs and chants out loud:

• Nanny-nanny-boo-boo
• It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring
• Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posy
• AIR-BALL, AIR-BALL (heard at basketball games when the shooter misses the net)

Hear the common thread? They're all sung to the same basic tune, a tune that includes the first four notes of "Numi, pietà". It turns out that this collection of pitches is something hard-wired in human DNA. It's something that children in every culture just naturally sing when playing or when taunting others. (Or, in the case of "air-ball" when reacting like taunting children.)

No less a musical mind than Leonard Bernstein explored this phenomenon in the first of his famous series of lectures at Harvard University: "The Unanswered Question". In the first lecture, "Musical Phonology", Bernstein considered children's taunting chants:

"Research seems to indicate that this exact constellation (of pitches) is the same all over the world, wherever children tease each other, on every continent and in every culture. In short, we may have here a clear case of a musical-linguistic universal."

In other words, what we have here is something primal: call it a cross-cultural, cross-generational universal refrain of childhood. When playground taunts follow this "tune", no child is thinking "I shall now employ the Universal Refrain of Childhood -- that'll show him!" No, it's apparently just hard-wired in his DNA.

In the case of Aida, the meaning of the tune seems clear: Aida's dilemma has reduced her to a child-like state of helplessness and neediness. While the conception of a god as "God the Father" - that is, a loving personal God who cares about our happiness - was likely foreign to Egyptian religion, for Verdi's purposes that conception is at the heart of Aida's prayer. Appealing to her gods as a child begs a parent, Aida reverts to the Universal Refrain of Childhood.

Now, if Giuseppe Verdi could read this blog, there are exactly three ways he could logically respond:

1. "Bravo, Glenn! You have correctly read my intent; I applaud your refined musical understanding." or:
2. "Glenn, Glenn, Glenn... you're thinking too hard, son. It's just a tune and you're not that clever." or:
3. "WHOAHHH - I had no idea, but you may be on to something. This totally makes sense! Must have been my subconscious mind that came up with that, because I didn't realize it til now."

But regardless of Verdi's intent... the musical connection is there.

THE AMNERIS-RADAMES DUET IN ACT III

In this, the finest tenor-mezzo duet ever created, Verdi displays his unsurpassed brilliance at setting texts with such vividness that the emotions of the characters leap off the page and force us to feel what they're feeling.

And this is accomplished by means of melodic contour.

The duet falls into three sections (You can hear it in this video with Grace Bumbry and Franco Corelli) The first section, beginning at 2:58 of the video, features a melody apt for the dramatic situation. Amneris, aware that Radames does not love her but still wanting to save his life, advises him to defend himself at his imminent trial on charges of treason. The vocal line, accompanied by unhurried clarinet triplets, is reserved and somewhat formal, reflecting their strained relationship.

When Radames declines to defend himself, preferring death, Amneris (always too impulsive) cannot restrain her passionate love, guilt for having had him arrested, and desperation. This new theme begins at 5:22; it erupts out of her. Here is the vocal line: note the wide range and contour:

Follow along as you listen; Radames repeats it with his own outburst after Aida, so you hear it twice in succession. The melody dips and soars from low to high to low to high again. This has the effect of mimicking the rise and fall of human speech in an agitated, excited utterance. Sometimes we might say: "I can't believe you never told me where you were going." 

But if we're particularly outraged, it sounds more like:

"I can't be-LIEVE you NE-ver told me where you were GO-ing!!!", with a similar roller-coaster rise and fall of inflection. The effect of the outbursts of Amneris and Radames is visceral.

And one more.

O TERRA ADDIO

Just as Radames' melody in "Celeste Aida" seemed to stretch upward, reaching for the sun and the heavens, Verdi comes full circle in the final duet with Aida, bidding farewell to earth as the supply of air in their underground tomb brings on death by suffocation. (Listen to the duet here.)

In an inspired bit of orchestration, observe that, as Aida introduces the melody of the finale, the strings are playing a thread of softly sustained notes in their highest register; this is a metaphor for the thinning-out of oxygen as death approaches.

But the tune itself features an upward leap of an octave, approached from the half-step below, obviously a gesture of reaching upward for the eternal life all Egyptians expected:

For the second time in this post, I wonder if any aspect of the theme strikes you as familiar from another context. It should. "O terra addio" has three grandchildren; one each in music theater, film and opera.

• The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy's iconic "Somewhere over the rainbow" begins with its own upward leap of an octave. I need not point out that rainbows are "up there" - in the sky.
• West Side Story: The song "There's a place for us", sung by Consuelo during the Act II balleta and later by Maria as Tony dies in her arms, is an anthem for the Puerto Rican teens who feel alienated in New York. The melody follows the pattern of a "reaching" gesture, this time falling one step short of an octave, only to make it all the way up on a second effort. Bernstein likely had Beethoven in mind more than Aida, as the opening phrase is a clone of a portion of the slow movement of Beethoven's "Emperor" piano concerto. But the symbolism matches that of Verdi.
• Susannah: The title character of Carlisle Floyd's American opera sings the aria "Ain't it a pretty night" in Act I, In its affect and declaration of hopes and dreams, it has always struck me as a forerunner of Ariel's song "Part of their world" in the animated musical The Little Mermaid. Both characters feel trapped in the confines of their limited environs and long to explore new horizons. But only Susannah's solo contains the Aida-like leap from "do" to "ti", one half-step short of the octave. Unlike "O terra addio", which then continues on up to the full octave, "Pretty night" falls a full-step down from its highest note. Here's a facile but possibly valid interpretation of the difference in meaning:

Aida and Radames, in their minds at least, make it to eternal life above the "vale di pianti" of earthly sadness; thus, they "make it" up to the octave.

Susannah, as events unfold, ends up a permanent prisoner of her isolated cabin, a lifetime of bitterness stretching out in front of her. She doesn't make it all the way up.