Cairo Opera House

Cairo Opera House opened on Gezira Island on 10 October 1988. Built through cooperation between Egypt and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, it was designed with forms drawn from Islamic architecture. Its foundation stone was laid in March 1985, and construction took thirty-four months. The new institution succeeded the Khedivial Opera House, which had opened in 1869 and was destroyed by fire on 28 October 1971. That earlier theatre inaugurated its activities with Verdi's Rigoletto and presented the premiere of Aida in 1871. The modern complex restored a permanent base for operatic activity in Cairo after the loss of the nineteenth-century building.