Projects

Since its first performance in 1871, the opera telling the tragic love story of the Ethiopian princess Aida – once brought to the Nile as a slave – and the Egyptian commander Radames has become one of the most popular and most performed works in the entire opera repertoire. Verdi conceived Aida as an opera that would have no equal. It has grandiose choral scenes and rousing rhythmic marches, lyrical evocations of nature, gorgeous arias and romantic duets.

The Bregenz Floating Stage is the ideal set for grand passion and tragic conflict. In the summer of last year NUSSLI was awarded the contract for constructing the stage for this special production. After the planning period and preassembly in the fall, staff embarked on the construction work in December. The feet, 15 by 15 meters in size, were installed from March onwards. The person to whom these feet would belong would be about 100 meters tall and would take shoe size 2,400. Furthermore, the NUSSLI fitters installed a 17 by 12 meter book standing in the water as well as a 15-meter-tall torch which is hydraulically movable via rocker arms and rotary shafts. During the performance the torch is raised from the water by two cylinders each measuring 8.5 meters in length and having a net weight of eight tonnes.

The challenge in constructing and producing this extravagant stage set consisted in prefabricating the feet in such a way that they could be dismantled and transported. In March some 20 trucks conveyed the components to Bregenz where the entire stage set was completed by May.

Verdi‘s AIDA on the Bregenz Floating Stage attracted a record audience of 257,000 in 2009 and it will again enthrall thousands of spectators in the summer of 2010.

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