Virginia Opera is well aware of Timothée Chalamet’s recent comments about the art form it practices.

“There is a certain Hollywood actor that says, ‘no one cares’ about opera and ballet,” says Adam Turner, who will conduct Virginia Opera’s production of “Aida” in Richmond this weekend. “Having seen our audiences in Norfolk recently for this production of ‘Aida,’ I can tell you that there are a lot of people that care about opera and want to see it thrive.”

Turner, who is also Virginia Opera’s artistic director and chief conductor, invites Richmonders to come and judge for themselves.

Set against the pyramids of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, Giuseppe Verdi’s epic drama relates the story of star-crossed lovers on opposite sides of a war. The Egyptian warrior Radamès has fallen in love with Aida, an enslaved Ethiopian woman. Unbeknownst to him and other Egyptians, Aida is actually an Ethiopian princess who must decide whether to be loyal to Radamès or her father and her country. Complicating matters further, Amneris, the daughter of the Pharaoh, has fallen hard for Radamès.

Considered a jewel of the operatic canon, “Aida” is so popular that New York’s Metropolitan Opera has performed it more than 1,100 times since 1886. Some of the grandest productions have included live elephants and camels onstage.

“It represents one of the most iconic and monumental of all grand operas,” says Turner. “The music is extraordinary. It’s the peaks and valley of the greatest artistic expression in opera. It’s a sonic splendor, a spectacle of sound, and that comes through the large choruses, the large orchestra, these intensely dramatic voices that are required in the principal roles.”

Joachim Schamberger, the show’s director, says the opera is a fascinating exploration of how people balance their personal desires with their duties to society.

“From a dramatic point of view, it’s just so perfect — how it works at the same time as a large scale opera and as an intimate piece of theater with a lot of psychology between the characters,” Schamberger says.

Soprano Indira Mahajan, who stars as the title character, says “Aida” is great for first-time operagoers because of its spectacle and dramatic intrigue.

“People keep coming back to it because it’s a great story,” says Mahajan. “It’s like a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ story, or an ancient ‘West Side Story.’”

Though “Aida” enjoys an enduring popularity, this production marks only the second time in Virginia Opera’s 51-year history that it’s mounted the work. Turner says that for all of the opera’s popularity, its scale makes it difficult to mount for a company of Virginia Opera’s size. This production, for example, will involve a 40-voice chorus and more than 50 musicians from the Richmond Symphony.

“Once you put the cast and the chorus and the orchestra together, you have well over 100 people producing sound all at once, and there’s really nothing quite like that,” says Turner, noting that the opera had to cancel a previously planned March 2020 production of “Aida” because of the pandemic; the company last staged “Aida” in October 2011.

The wait, he says, is worth it.

“There are moments of exquisite vulnerability and intimacy where you just have a solo voice singing acapella onstage, or a solo voice accompanied by one solo instrument, or some really delicate, shimmery high strings,” Turner says. “These moments just really capture what I’m talking about, the peaks and valleys of music making and artistic expression.”

Noting how rarely Virginia Opera gets to stage “Aida,” Turner encourages people to see the show while it’s in Richmond.

“It’s a once-in-a-generation production, and you don’t want to have to wait another 15 years,” Turner says. “It will stir you to the bones and keep you entertained. You don’t want to miss it. You want to be there.”

Virginia Opera’s “Aida” plays March 20 and 22 at the Dominion Energy Center, 600 E. Grace St. For more information visit vaopera.org.