After eight years, "Aida" returns to Shanghai. This time it's not an opera but an award-winning Broadway musical about love and loyalty by Elton John and Tim Rice.

It premieres on Thursday at the Majestic Theater and runs through October 12.

The musical "Aida" was created in 2000, the second collaboration of John and Rice since they wrote the score for the worldwide phenomenon "The Lion King." They have injected modern musical elements, including jazz, rock, pop and blues into the love story about a captured Ethiopian slave girl and an Egyptian captain.

The musical won four Tony Awards and a Grammy Award of the year.

It begins in the modern day when a girl and a boy meet by chance at the museum in Cairo. It's love at first sight, they can't take their eyes from each other. It's as though they knew each other in another life.

Back thousands of years: A young Egyptian captain Radames falls in love with his slave, Ethiopian princess Aida, but Egyptian Princess Amneris has claimed Radames for herself.

Lovers Radames and Aida sacrifice their lives for love and meet again thousands of years later.

It is a triangle love story as well as an epic tale of love, loyalty and betrayal.

The conflict between love and duty is the most appealing aspect of "Aida" to David Henry Hwang, one of the playwrights of the musical. Hwang, a Chinese American, says each of the principal characters is a political leader who falls in love with someone who compromises his or her duty.

"Under such conditions, can all human problems be solved by the power of love?" asks Hwang. "The musical tells us, sensibly enough, no Aida and Radames still die."

But Hwang says love can set in motion a series of events that will eventually lead to a better situation, just as Amneris' experience with Aida and Radames transform her into a more just and peace-loving ruler.

Though the musical is based on the classic Verdi opera, Hwang has made many changes.

For example, the opera "Aida" begins with the fact that Radames has fallen in love with his slave girl, which seems too abrupt in Hwang's eyes. In the musical, therefore, he explores how this happened.

He decided to make Aida and Amneris friends, creating a more interesting romantic triangle. It also puts Amneris in greater conflict and gives her a better "character arc" to play.

Hwang also added the idea of reincarnation - key to ancient Egyptian religion as well as Asian philosophies. Thus, the young woman and young man who fall in love in the Egyptian museum are reincarnated Aida and Radames.

"When I wrote 'Aida,' I was certainly conscious of the degree to which tragic love stories play a prominent part in Asian folklore," says Hwang. "The story that most influenced me was the old Chinese fairytale about the love between the cowherd and the weaving goddess. In both cases, the lovers meet an extremely bittersweet, but very romantic fate."

Elton John has acknowledged the danger in writing a modern version of an operatic classic, but he jumped at the chance to update and complete the story about undying love.

Date: September 25-October 12, 2pm, 7:30pm

Venue: Majestic Theater, 66 Jiangning Rd

Tickets: 100-1,080 yuan

Tel: 962-288

(Shanghai Daily September 23, 2008)