Abstract

Directed by Clemente Fracassi and presenting an abridged version of Verdi’s work, Aida (1953) was the first Italian cineopera in Technicolor, achieving successful distribution across Europe and the United States. This article investigates Aida against the backdrop of post-World War II Italy and the contemporary film industry, reflecting on the creative strategies adopted by Fracassi to craft a blockbuster explicitly targeting a mainstream, international audience. Firstly, I explore the adaptation process of Verdi’s opera in film, focusing on the interventions aimed at achieving greater realism by downplaying conventions typical of opera that, tacitly accepted by operagoers, were deemed incompatible with the cinematic medium. I then address the film’s casting choices alongside the recourse to theatrical makeup to portray Ethiopian ethnicity. A direct legacy of operatic staging, the use of dark makeup appears to clash significantly with the film’s broader intent to adapt Verdi’s opera to the cinematic medium and is especially striking in a period when Italian Neorealism had recently redefined cinematic codes for the representation of blackness. Finally, I discuss how Fracassi’s decision to specifically film Aida offered the advantage of aligning with the then-fashionable trend of Hollywood epic films, and of capitalising on the success of Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis (1951), recently shot at Cinecittà, with which Aida shares numerous dramatic elements. In this context, I examine Fracassi’s use of the so-called ‘Roman salute’ in light of Italy’s ongoing reckoning with its colonialist and totalitarian past. Ultimately, I argue that Fracassi’s Aida can be interpreted as an intentionally ambiguous ideological product open to multiple readings and designed to appeal to a wide and diverse audience.