This is Part 2 of a series of posts that examines Disney’s Aida in detail. Aida has a book by Linda Woolverton, David Henry Hwang and Robert Falls, lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Elton John.
Sherie Rene Scott as Amneris in the Original Broadway Production
Act 1 Scene 1
A sudden rock chord completely breaks the tone of “Every Story is a Love Story” and marking the segue into the next musical number of the show, “Fortune Favours the Brave”. Linked by a few lines of recitative, during which Amneris sets up the situation for the audience, we definitely seem to be in rock opera territory. By the time we get into the song proper, our expectations for what we can expect from Aida are firmly in place.
The theme of destiny vs free will is introduced in this lyric. This will become an important idea as the play continues, one that plays superficially with the beliefs of Egyptian mythology but which is mostly based in romantic notions that lurk in our own minds in the tradition of Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Isolde.
Tim Rice’s lyrics for the recitative work well, except for one section:
Egypt saw the mighty river
As its very heart and soul
Source of life for all her people
That only Egypt could control
Destruction of her southern neighbor justified
Nubia exploited, left with little more than pride
Here it is just the selection of the auxiliary verb ‘could’ that diffuses the power of the lyric. “Could” expresses conditional possibility and implies that Egypt merely has the capacity to control the Nile, when it is clear that this situation is one where control of the Nile is an absolutely necessity. That leaves us with a choice between “should” or “would”, which are the past forms of “shall” and “will”. Remember that “shall” is used when speaking in the first person and “will” is used in other persons, except when expressing determination. The question that arises now is whether or not Amneris is employing the majestic plural in this passage: in other words, is she herself a part ‘Egypt’ or is this just narration? If the former is intended, Rice should have used “would”; in the latter case, he should have used “should”.
After the recitative, a refrain of 8 bars carries us back to Ancient Egypt, hopefully with a coup de théâtre that is perhaps a bit more impressive than, as indicated in the book, the flying in of a few ‘large red sails’. We are now introduced to Radames and his soldiers as they load the spoils of war onto their barge as they sing “Fortune Favors the Brave”.
An illustration by Leo and Diane Dillon from Leontyne Price's children's book adaptation of AIDA, showing the exploitation of Nubia.
This song should really define the parameters Radames’ character: a brave explorer who loves the freedom his occupation brings him, a freedom that is threatened by his betrothal to Amneris. We don’t know this yet, but it is essential that the song highlights his fear of being trapped forever in the royal Egyptian court and makes clear that the objective behind his exploration is to discover something that gives his life meaning, something which can never be found within the walls of the palaces of Egypt.
Musically, the song hits the spot. It’s energetic and frenetic and feels like the perfect rock opera representation of Radames. However, the lyrics approach the matter of characterisation too broadly and don’t quite achieve everything they would had Rice been more meticulous in his craft. In the first stanza, Radames boasts of Egypts conquests: it appears that they have conquered everything and everyone in their attempts to control the Nile. It seems that the battle for control is over and that this song signals Radames’ triumphant return to Egypt. What’s rather odd, then, is the switch to the present tense in the second stanza:
The more we find, the more we see,
The more we come to learn
The more that we explore,
The more we shall return.
Is this not the final, triumphant return it seems to be? The lyric provides no real answer. Even more perplexing is the final couplet of this refrain. It’s a ridiculous, if not nonsensical, statement and the logic doesn’t seem suited to the character anyway. As we will see, Radames doesn’t really want to return for fear of being forever bound to duties in the palace and yet this lyric makes it sound like the favourite part of his journey is the return trip. That is if one assumes that a full stop or semi-colon separates line 2 from line 3. The lack of punctuation after the second line (in both the libretto and the score) means that the actor has to work his way around an unfortunate ambiguity in his communication of the lyric to us: without any conclusive guideline from the lyricist, the line could also mean: ‘the more we come to learn (that) the more that we explore, the more we shall return’. This conclusion is perhaps even more trite that the first possible reading – proof positive that a lack of specificity in the writing of lyrics really can be the undoing of a song’s dramatic functions.
Adam Pascal as Radames
After a chorus, the song continues:
It’s all worked out, my road is clear
The lines of latitude extend
Way beyond my wildest dreams
Toward some great triumphant end
We seized the day, we turned the tide
We touched the stars, we mocked the grave
We moved into uncharted lands
Fortune favors the brave
Again we seem to have a lyric that completely subverts the character. Radames’ road is ‘all worked out’: his father is forcing him into a position at the palace that Ramades doesn’t really want. It’s no ‘triumphant end’. It’s a pity about the first line of this stanza, because the rest of it so beautifully captures the character’s yearning for adventure and for an ending he can’t yet see, one that he knows will be confounded, as he later implies, by being trapped ‘in the palace yard’. Yet, the constant changing between tenses make it unclear whether or not all of his opportunities to avoid this sorry fate have been expended as we switch into the past tense once again for four lines of adventurous action. Drama is about the present moment and I feel these lines would be stronger if they were written in the present tense, supporting the idea that Radames has not given up on whatever it is that he is searching for and that he will do anything to find it.
The rest of the song continues much in the same vein, with another concession to the theme of destiny vs free will offered in the following verse:
Nothing is an accident
We are free to have it all
We are what we want to be
It’s in ourselves to rise or fall
Another chorus of the repeated title phrase concludes the song, leaving us a little bewildered, if we have been paying attention to the lyrics, as to who this mad truly is. There is enough to give the audience the right sensibility regarding Ramades as a character but, when it could be so much more specific and all the richer for it, what we have isn’t quite as satisfying as it could be either.
NEXT UP: The past is another land…
Purchases from Amazon.com
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: 1. Aida Original Concept Album CD. 2. Aida Original Broadway Cast CD. 3. Disney on Broadway Book. 4. The Making of Aida Book. 5. Disney’s Aida Vocal Selections.
Musical Cyberspace 
Deconstructing Disney: AIDA Part 4
This is Part 4 in a series of posts that examines Disney’s Aida in detail. Aida has a book by Linda Woolverton, David Henry Hwang and Robert Falls, lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Elton John.
Act 1 Scene 2
Micky Dolenz as Zoser in the Original Broadway Production
The next scene begins with another book segment, thankfully one that is less contrived than the interaction between Aida and Radames in the previous scene. We are introduced to Mereb, one of Radames’ slaves, and Zoser, Radames’ father, whose ambitions for his son include marrying the Pharaoh’s daughter, Amneris so that his future in the palace will be secure. During the book scene, when Radames is present, Zoser’s plans seem to end with that ambition, but during the following song, it is revealed that Zoser is, in collaboration with the other ministers, helping his cause by slowly poisoning the Pharaoh with arsenic. This is another aspect of a theme that was introduced in the the previous scene: that all things are not as they seem in Aida. This is reinforced by Radames’ treatment of the women slaves in this scene, saving them from certain death in the copper mines by sending them to work in the fields, an act that surprises Aida because of its decency.
The song that follows, “Another Pyramid”, serves to establish Zoser’s character further and to inform us of his political undermining of Egypt’s theocracy. The name given to the character is undoubtedly a nod to the the real Egyptian pharaoh Zoser who, along with his head architect, Imhotep, was responsible for conceiving the first Egyptian pyramid.
The song, known for its choreographed staging, doesn’t allow Zoser much complexity and unfortunately reduces him in some ways to a cartoon villain, like Scar in The Lion King. Starting with a reggae vamp, it eventually builds through the dance break to a strong rock finish – once again a choice that would suit the demands of a rock opera perfectly, but which seems odd when placed into a book musical, which requires a rather different, more organic integration between the libretto and the score.
The lyrics of “Another Pyramid” are messy to the extent that they seem exist in contradiction to the process that was followed in the writing of the songs for the show, with Elton John composing music to lyrics written and passed on to him by Tim Rice. In other words, it seems like the lyrics were forced to fit the music, even though we know the process was completed the other way round. Look, for example, in the awkward way the title is incorporated at the end of each of Zoser’s series of verses.
There is also this invocation of ‘the Hawk God Horus’ which makes me wonder whether Rice is trying to be clever by throwing in the name of an Egyptian deity, but failing because he doesn’t really know the conventions of the mythology: although, as would be the case in a theocracy, Horus is a god that is associated with the king and is indeed identified with the king during his lifetime, it is Osiris that is associated with the afterlife. Neither seems to be a god that deals in prophecy, so one is left to wonder through what oracle Zoser divined this information. The other option is to wonder whether Rice is really being clever and allowing the character to make the mistake, a flaw in the cover-up of his less admirable deeds for the benefit of his son, to whom he is singing this lyric. But then why doesn’t Radames pick up on the inconsistency? Is he so upset to hear of the Pharaoh’s illness? Certainly, the brief inter-verse dialogue that sees him exit indicates that he is – but perhaps that is a fortunate accident in theatre-making rather than a considered decision.
The rest of the song manages to incorporate trite expressions (“each dog must have its day”), poor linguistic choices for the sake of meter (“just like his fathers did”), self-conscious Rice-isms (“Summon Egypt’s greatest builder re: another pyramid”) and a statement that is just plain confusing:
The opening of the first stanza quoted above reads logically, given what we’ve heard about Egypt’s exploitation of Nubia and their quest to explore and map the areas around the Nile. The second stanza also makes sense (the awkward fourth line notwithstanding) and throws in a delightful rhyme to boot. However, one wonders about the lyric that links the two. Who is the ‘we’? Egypt? Zoser and the ministers? Zoser and Radames? And why is this ‘finest hour’ ‘far beyond the mighty Nile’? Surely the triumph that Zoser is seeking is within Egypt itself? The answers to these questions remain evasive.
John Hickok sings "Another Pyramid" in the Original Broadway Production
Musically, as mentioned above, the song makes use of reggae to create (one assumes) the sense of political unrest that underscores Zoser’s words. It’s an interesting choice, given reggae’s use as a tool of political protest – although I don’t think that that its use as such in the real world encompasses out-and-out treachery. The fact that the show is a book musical rather than a rock opera also forces one to wonder how a Jamaican musical style from the 1960s makes its way to Ancient Egypt, but – as I’ve implied in the third post in this series – I think this kind of anachronism is a key feature of the score, the validity of which can be debated back and forth in relation to the form that has been chosen to communicate this narrative.
NEXT UP: Aida and MerebCo
Purchases from Amazon.com
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: 1. Aida Original Concept Album CD. 2. Aida Original Broadway Cast CD. 3. Disney on Broadway Book. 4. The Making of Aida Book. 5. Disney’s Aida Vocal Selections.