On 24 December 1871, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida premiered in Cairo’s Khedivial Opera House. The Khedive of Egypt, Ismail, had commissioned Verdi to compose the opera as part of a larger program of urban renewal that had peaked with the Suez Canal’s inauguration in November 1869. Wide boulevards, landscaped gardens, and luxury hotels of iron, steel, and the improved glass of the nineteenth century modernized sections of Cairo and Alexandria. In anticipation of the many guests who planned to attend the canal’s inauguration, Ismail funded the construction of a road leading directly from Cairo to the pyramids and patronized the construction of a Khedivial Opera House.1

中文翻译：

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宣称古埃及：轻歌剧《阿依达》和现代埃及人的形成


1871 年 12 月 24 日，朱塞佩·威尔第的歌剧《阿依达》在开罗的海迪夫歌剧院首演。埃及的赫迪夫人伊斯梅尔 （Ismail） 委托威尔第创作这部歌剧，作为更大的城市更新计划的一部分，该计划在 1869 年 11 月苏伊士运河落成时达到顶峰。宽阔的林荫大道、园景花园和铁、钢的豪华酒店，以及 19 世纪开罗和亚历山大港现代化部分的改进玻璃。伊斯梅尔预计会有许多客人计划参加运河的落成典礼，因此出资修建了一条从开罗直接通往金字塔的道路，并赞助建造了一座海迪夫歌剧院。