AFTER AIDA - A Comedy with Music

It is 1879. Giuseppe Verdi, Italy’s greatest and most beloved composer, has not written an opera for nearly a decade. What is to be done? 

Verdi's closest associates, publisher Giulio Ricori and conductor Franco Faccio are determined to get the Maestro working again. 

With the aid of Verdi's wife, Giuseppina, they conspire to team him with the brilliant operatic wordsmith, Arrigo Boito, and the greatest tragic opera ever written - Otello - is conceived. 

But trouble is looming. Boito hasn't always had nice things to say about Verdi. And at 66 years of age, the man himself isn't sure he can cut it anymore. Who said art was easy?

"....conceived with wit and clarity, written with singular style...infused with quality!"  (Western Mail, UK)

Julian Mitchell's play include the Olivier-Award-winning, "Another Country", "Francis" (about St Francis of Assisi), both of which starred Kenneth Branagh in their original West End runs, and "The Evils of Tobacco"; his screenplays include, "Vincent & Theo", "August", and "Wilde"; his novels include, "The White Father", "A Circle of Friends", and "The Undiscovered Country".