Austin Opera launches its 2015-16 season with the masterful grand opera of Verdi’s Aida, foundational support provided by the Georgia B. Lucas Foundation.

Famous for its Triumphal March and soaring arias, Verdi’s Aida is an intimate story of a love triangle between enemies during the times of war between Egypt and Ethiopia. Graced with some of Verdi’s greatest music, it’s a tour de force of choral scenes, dance, massive sets, and vocal power. Issachah Savage and Karen Slack will make their Austin Opera debuts in this beloved story of ill-fated love and betrayal.

Stage director Brian Deedrick, former Artistic Director of the Edmonton Opera, will bring Verdi’s spectacular opera to life with powerful vocals, themes of patriotism and betrayal, and sets dominated by a looming Sphinx-like stone face that changes from blood-red at sunset to a ghostly shadow peering from the gloom of the final duet.

The key to the staying power of “Aida” for more than 140 years since its premier has been the human story under it all. At the heart of this opera is the story of an Ethiopian slave and secret princess Aida, her powerful Egyptian mistress, Princess Amneris, and their shared love for the ambitious soldier Ramades. Their love story, wrapped in complex themes of loyalty, longing, nation and regret, is told in four acts using some of the most intricate and complicated music that Guiseppe Verdi ever wrote, with voices blending like ribbons of sound.

Aida features the Austin Opera Chorus and the Austin Opera Orchestra.

An Opera in four acts with intermissions after Act II and Act III, sung in Italian with English translation projected above the stage.