Today is the anniversary of the opening of Disney’s Aida, the House of Mouse’s third Broadway musical, following Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, and the first not to be based on an animated feature film. Making its bow at the Palace Theatre in 2000, Aida starred Heather Headley as the eponymous Nubian princess, with Adam Pascal as her Egyptian captor, Radames, and Sherie Rene Scott as Pharaoh elect, Amneris. 2000 was a weird year at the Tony Awards thanks to the nomination and eventual win of a dance show, Contact, in the Best Musical category, so Aida was shut out of the top category. Even so, Elton John and Tim Rice were nominated and won the award for Best Score. (Both prizes should have gone to Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe’s The Wild Party, but what can you do?) The score for Aida was eclectic, with a solid foundation in John’s pop style, infused with reggae, gospel and soul as well as cultural influences from Africa, the Middle East and India. In today’s Saturday List, we’re taking a look at the five best songs in the score, those that give audiences more than a sense of “Enchantment Passing Through.”

5. “Dance of the Robe”

Knowing that John set Rice’s lyrics to music when writing Aida is just one of the things that makes this song so fascinating. The overall drive of Rice’s lyrics for “this song “Dance of the Robe” is clear, but on a granular level, there are so many slight variations in metre, starting in the second line of the song, that ultimately indicate a slip in his craftsmanship. Compare

It’s knowing what they want of me that scares me.
It’s knowing having followed that I must lead.

with

You robe should be golden, your robe should be perfect
Instead of this ragged concoction of thread…

and you’ll see what I mean. His phrases are also incredibly long. Take the latter quote above, for example, which continues:

… But may you be moved by its desperate beauty
To give us new life for we’d rather be dead
Than live in the squalor and shame of the slave –
To the dance, to the dance!

This number is a huge dramatic moment in the show and it has to achieve a significant turning point in Aida’s arc, the moment when she takes responsibility for the actions that led to her and the other women’s capture and when she takes on the mantle of leadership. John sets the lyrics to a restless 6/8 rhythm, giving it enough momentum for both the singer and the audience to follow the line of the lyric.

There’s also enough movement in the line for the song to build from a quiet individual reflection into a frenzied ensemble dance, in which the underlying unease of the situation and the Nubian’s call for agency gain direction and passion. It’s brilliantly theatrical and in some ways, it’s better theatre than songwriting – but this is a perfect example of how musicals can propel a dramatic moment to the next level.

4. “Enchantment Passing Through”

“Enchantment Passing Through” is one of the songs in Aida that has had a more transformative journey than most. Originally, it was a solo song for Radames expressing his frustration and anger about the life that awaited him upon return to Egypt, a life in which he felt trapped. The original-ish version can be heard on the concept album in an odd cover version by the R&B group, Dru Hill. The song’s original iteration didn’t play for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s a song that places Radames at the heart of the story and ultimately, Aida isn’t about him. His entrapment is also not comparable to Aida’s enslavement, a point that was made clearly in the book scene inserted midway into the new version of the song, which became a duet between Radames and Aida:

AIDA
You talk as though you’ve been enslaved.

RADAMES
Not with chains, maybe, but with a marriage promise. (AIDA begins dabbing her eyes with her dress.) What is that for?

AIDA
To dry my weeping eyes. Forced to marry a princess? Oh, what hardships. I know – you want to go to lands where people have been living for centuries and say that you “discovered” them. But instead, you’re being thrust onto the Pharaoh’s throne. It is a great tragedy.

RADAMES
You go too far.

AIDA
No! You go too far. If you don’t like your fate, change it. You are your own master. There are no shackles on you. So don’t expect any pity or understanding from this humble palace slave.

Secondly, the writers, which originally included Linda Woolverton as the writer of its book ahead of numerous revisions by Robert Falls and David Henry Hwang alongside Rice and John, also struggled with a key problem during the creation of this show: how to make the audience believe that an enslaved woman could fall in love with the man that enslaved her. Giving Aida a voice in this song enabled them to point out common ground between them, not in the characters’ circumstances, but in some of the ways they saw the world around them. Indeed, the song really takes flight as it modulates into Aida’s verse:

If I could leave this place then I’d be sailing
To corners of my land where there would be
Sweet southern winds of liberty prevailing
The beauty so majestic and so free.

If there is any flaw left in the song from that original version, it is in giving its ending exclusively to Radames. Rice’s silencing of Aida’s voice in these final moments holds back the show’s storytelling. It would be great to see this addressed should there ever be a major revival of the show.

3. “Written in the Stars”

Stylistically, “Written in the Stars” is one of the most Elton John-like songs in the score. That much is more obvious in the version he recorded with the country and crossover darling of the late 1990s, LeeAnn Rimes, on the concept album for Aida, but the sound carries through into the show itself. The song connects so well with audiences thanks to the much-loved trope of star-crossed lovers who are destined by fate and their circumstances never to find love in a tragic world. What makes the song more layered, though, is how different Radames and Aida’s views of the gods who have decided their fate are. Radames is still caught up in romance, somewhat selfishly, and viewing this as a personal loss. Perhaps I’m being a little unfair, as Radames isn’t yet aware that Aida is the king of Nubia’s daughter, so he’s not working with the full deck of cards. There’s no such dramatic irony when it comes to Aida’s view of things. She’s fully aware of the irony that the gods have provided her with a solution to her country’s colonisation in the form of a man she truly loves but cannot marry. Radames, after all, can only influence Amneris’ political decisions as her consort. In contrast to Radames, she finds a purpose greater than herself in the gods’ actions:

Nothing can be altered, there is nothing to decide –
No escape, no change of heart, nor any place to hide.

This song seems to end with the lovers’ acceptance that this is the way things need to be. Radames decides to send Aida back to Nubia and the story would play out very differently if not for one small thing: Amneris has been watching all of this from the shadows and their fate now transfers from the gods’ hands into hers.

2. “The Gods Love Nubia”

“The Gods Love Nubia” was written for the first workshop of Aida, a gospel-flavoured anthem to Aida’s homeland. It’s been said that the song in the final version of the show is very similar to the one heard back then. The cut on the concept album, sung by American gospel singer Kelly Price, supports this idea, although we know this song was originally in Act 2 before finding its final spot as the Act 1 finale. Storywise, the Egyptians have just captured Amonasro, the King of Nubia and Aida’s father, just as Aida has declared her love for Radames. Radames senses the personal significance this political act has for Aida, although he does not yet know that Amonasro is her father. Aida leaves him to return to the Nubian camp and the show heads towards the end of its first act. Joined by Nehebka, Mereb and the Nubians, Aida considers their nation’s fate in its darkest moment, stating that ‘Nubia will never die! Whether we are enslaved or whether we are far from our native soil, Nubia lives in our hearts. And therefore, it lives.’ “The Gods Love Nubia” follows, a passionate tribute to everything Nubia represents: ‘the beautiful, the golden, the radiant, the fertile, the gentle and the blessed.’ The song calls attention to itself, in one of the opening verses, as Aida searches for hope in the Nubians’ current tragedy:

In the sway of somber music
I shall never, never understand,
Let me slip into the sweeter
Chorus of that other land.

This duality is further highlighted as the song continues, working towards the image of ‘(t)he spirit always burning though the flesh is torn apart.’ It’s moving stuff on its own terms, but what really makes the song continue to resonate are statements like ‘(t)he pain of Nubia is only for the moment: the desolate, the suffering, the plundered, the oppressed’ and ‘the tears of Nubia, a passing aberration, they wash into the river and are never cried again,’ when they are considered alongside the history of Africa as a whole. A continent wealthy in its culture, ecology and resources, the countries of which have been subject to the worst kinds of socio-political terrorism throughout history, Africa is home to people passionate about what the continent and their individual countries represent and have to offer.

1. “Elaborate Lives”

“Elaborate Lives” is John’s favourite song in the score of Aida and his musical trademarks are all over it, in its chords, rhythms and overall structure. It would not be out of place among his best pop ballads and it is the unqualified highlight of the show’s score. Originally a solo for Aida, and preserved as such on the concept album where it is performed by Heather Headley, the song was adapted into a duet with Radames by the time of the show’s premiere. The first time it is heard, the song is started by Radames; in its reprise, Aida begins the song. What really makes the song work is how stripped back it is, allowing the lyrics to come to the foreground. Perhaps this song resonates so strongly because Rice was absolutely authentic in what he had to say with it, saying that

“Elaborate Lives” is very much based on what I really feel, which is a rare chance in a show because for many of the songs I write for musicals, I’m writing only from the character’s point of view. This is one of the few songs where I actualy sat and wrote what I feel: ‘We all lead such elaborate lives.’

It’s no accident that the original title of the show was Elaborate Lives. This show revolves around the themes the song introduces. In John’s words:

What you wind up seeing are three characters in the process of maturing because of their love for one another. And being willing to give up everything for love changes you forever.

The original production of Aida closed in 2004 with 1 852 performances under its belt. Currently, it is the 40th longest-running show in Broadway history, at least until Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Hadestown, Moulin Rouge and Six – the productions currently running with more than 1000 performances – catch up to it. It’s true that the show is far from perfect and that it would likely be a much better rock opera than a book musical, given the eclecticism of its score. Nonetheless, it is a show that captured the imagination of Broadway audiences at the turn of the century, earning it a place in the musical theatre history books.