Aida is one of those operas that carries so much baggage with it that it's hard to step back and reassess it as the wonderful masterpiece it is, not just an artful assembly of big moments. I don't think I'd go as far as to call it an intimate chamber opera, because those big moments are an integral part of the whole work (the massive authority of the state versus the individual), but it's the way they are contrasted with the quiet, tender moments that makes it so striking. Dickens used to refer to the way he'd blend light-hearted and serious moments as 'streaky bacon' and surely Verdi is as great a master of that technique in opera as Dickens was in the novel. There's a humanity about Verdi (despite being a grumpy old devil in real life) that never fails to hit me in any half-decent performance. The final scene could come across as a cynical ploy to tug at the heartstrings but it really works and you feel that it comes out of the drama rather than it being an attempt to manipulate the audience.
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