AIDA to Open at Academy of Music as Opera Philadelphia Partners With Penn Museum

Beginning this fall, Opera Philadelphia and the Penn Museum will invite audiences to explore ancient Egypt through a multifaceted public engagement partnership. The inaugural collaboration connects the Penn Museum's 2026 opening of its newly transformed Egypt Galleries: Life and Afterlife, with Opera Philadelphia's April 2027 production of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida, creating opportunities for audiences of all ages to experience ancient Egypt through artifacts, music, scholarship, storytelling, and performance.

The partnership debuts at a moment when two unparalleled cultural experiences highlighting ancient Egypt launch in Philadelphia. On December 12, the Penn Museum will unveil the largest transformation in its 139-year history: the new Egypt Galleries, illuminating the stories of ancient Egyptians through 1,000 artifacts spanning 4,000 years. Four months later, Opera Philadelphia will bring Verdi's Aida back to the Academy of Music for the first time in two decades, presenting a reimagined production of the enduring story of love, power, war, betrayal and sacrifice.

Rather than portraying ancient Egyptians as distant or mysterious figures, the two institutions are bringing their stories to life through a profoundly human lens.

“Part of our goal is to humanize the ancient Egyptians. The individuals who made these artifacts—carved the stone, wrote on papyrus, and painted the statues—once had jobs, families, relationships, worries, celebrations, and dreams, just as we do today,” says Dr. Jennifer Houser Wegner, the Curator-in-Charge of the Egyptian Collection at the Penn Museum. 'This collaboration opens up new and exciting ways for anyone, whether they are deeply knowledgeable or simply curious about ancient Egypt, to experience it through the fascinating yet relatable stories of people who lived along the Nile River 4,000 ago.'

The Penn Museum and Opera Philadelphia are developing programs ranging from live performances and educational activities to gallery installations, public conversations, and behind-the-scenes explorations throughout the 2026–27 season and into fall 2027.

THE EGYPT GALLERIES: LIFE AND AFTERLIFE

The collaboration begins with the Penn Museum's Eternal Egypt Gala on Saturday, November 14, 2026, where a chorus of 16 singers and an instrumentalist led by Opera Philadelphia will perform throughout the evening. The musical program is inspired by the new galleries' central themes of Life and Afterlife, echoing the ancient Egyptian belief that life was not only about thriving in the present, but also about preparing for an existence that would continue beyond death.

At the public opening of the Egypt Galleries on Saturday, December 12, Opera Philadelphia teaching artists from its Residency Program will take the stage in the Museum's historic Harrison Auditorium. The teaching artists will lead a performance featuring the Triumphal Chorus from Aida, as well as two whimsical pieces to honor birds and cats, both sacred Egyptian symbols, drawing connections between the creative process of making opera and the stories, voices, and traditions represented in the galleries.

The partnership also comes full circle inside the new Egypt Galleries, where a permanent multimedia interactive installation explores ancient Egypt's enduring influence on Greater Philadelphia's arts and cultural landscape through first-person stories from the region's creative community.

Among those featured is Anthony Roth Costanzo, Grammy Award-winning countertenor and General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia, who shares the story of his own transformation into a revolutionary Egyptian pharaoh for Philip Glass' Akhnaten at the Metropolitan Opera.

“Ancient Egypt has been an extraordinary source of inspiration for artists for centuries, but opera gives us a particularly visceral way to enter that world,” says Costanzo. “When I performed as Akhenaten, I wasn't simply putting on an Egyptian costume or portraying a figure from history. I was asking: Who was this person? What did he believe? What did he want to change? And how did he imagine his place in eternity? Those are exactly the kinds of questions that make the Penn Museum's galleries so compelling. I'm thrilled that Opera Philadelphia can help audiences discover ancient Egypt not just through what we see, but through what we hear, feel and imagine.”

AIDA: ANCIENT EGYPT THROUGH THE POWER OF OPERA

The partnership continues in April 2027, when Opera Philadelphia presents Verdi's Aida at the Academy of Music. One of the most iconic operas ever written, Aida transports audiences to an imagined ancient Egypt at a time of conflict with Ethiopia. At its center are three people caught between personal desire and forces larger than themselves: Aida, an Ethiopian princess forced into captivity; Radamès, the Egyptian military commander she loves; and Amneris, the Egyptian princess whose love for Radamès collides with her rivalry with Aida.

Through its sweeping music and intimate human drama, Aida explores questions that resonate with the Penn Museum's new galleries: What does it mean to live? What are we willing to sacrifice for love, family or freedom? What do we leave behind? And what do we hope will survive us?

To delve deeper into these topics, the partner institutions will host a panel discussion in the spring. Egyptologists from the Penn Museum and scholars from the University of Pennsylvania Music Department, alongside speakers from Opera Philadelphia, will examine the ancient Egyptian world represented in the Museum's collections alongside the fictionalized Egypt of Aida, opening up questions about how archaeology, popular culture, and the arts shape modern perceptions of the ancient world.

In the fall, the partnership will also extend into the Penn Museum's four-week virtual course the Deep Dig, which connects lifelong learners with the Museum's collections, research, and global archaeological work.

The course will examine the legacy of the pharaoh Akhnaten—his revolutionary reign and timeless reputation that inspired contemporary opera. Introduced by Wegner, curator of the Egypt Galleries, the first three sessions will focus on archaeological evidence revealing the religious and political reforms Akhnaten brought to the ancient city of Amarna. The series concludes with a conversation between countertenor Constanzo who portrayed the pharaoh onstage and Richard Parkinson, Egyptology professor at the University of Oxford and a leading scholar of ancient Egyptian literature.

Together, the speakers will consider the remarkable journey of Akhenaten—from ancient ruler to archaeological discovery to subject of scholarship, art, and opera—and the ways ancient Egypt continues to inspire new creative interpretations.

OPENING DOORS TO PHILADELPHIA

At the heart of the partnership is a shared commitment to making Philadelphia's cultural institutions more accessible and connected to the communities they serve.

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