And what could be more impressive than to commission the famous Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, whose work reverberated throughout the world, to create a celebratory ode to mark the opening?Īlas, Verdi was less than enthusiastic. So the celebrations at the opening of the canal had to be the most magnificent they could possibly be. Despite that honor, Verdi initially rebuffed Ismail's commission, and later, his fear of the sea kept him from attending the opening. “My country is no longer in Africa we are now part of Europe,” said Egyptian Khedive Ismail Pasha, who opened the Suez Canal, rebuilt part of Cairo and constructed an epitome of high culture: an opera house modeled on the famous La Scala of Milan, which he inaugurated in 1869 with Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi, top. But the khedive believed that “my country is no longer in Africa we are now part of Europe,” and that the Suez Canal would change the course of world history or, at the very least, the course of world trade. And it was incredibly expensive to build a whole new quarter of Cairo for the occasion-especially one that resembled Baron Georges Haussmann’s redesigned Paris, complete with gas-lit boulevards, landscaped gardens and Cairo’s first opera house. It was certainly expensive to construct the new Gezira Palace specifically to house his most illustrious visitor, the Empress Eugénie of France. Yes, it was expensive to host a thousand official guests in style. S the ruler of Egypt since 1863, Khedive Ismail was determined not to stint on the celebrations marking the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. But the path to Aida’s success was surprisingly circuitous. Set in ancient Egypt, it has been performed in the vast Roman amphitheater of Verona, Italy in front of the Temple of Luxor in Egypt and in opera houses large and small throughout the world, literally thousands of times. The 200th birthday of Giuseppe Verdi, the Italian composer of one of the most popular operas of all time: Aida.
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