Aida

Aida was commissioned by the Khedive Ismail Pasha of Egypt for the opera house in Cairo, on a scenario worked up from an Egyptological outline by Auguste Mariette. Verdi accepted only after refusing an earlier request for a hymn to mark the opening of the Suez Canal. The Franco-Prussian War held the sets in besieged Paris and delayed the premiere to 24 December 1871; Verdi did not attend, mistrusting the whole enterprise, and regarded the European premiere at La Scala six weeks later as the real first performance.