In 1872 the Khédive of Egypt, an oriental ruler, whose love of western
art and civilization has since tangled him in economic meshes to escape
from which has cost him his independence, produced a new opera with
barbaric splendor of appointments, at Grand Cairo. The spacious theatre
blazed with fantastic dresses and showy uniforms, and the curtain rose
on a drama which gave a glimpse to the Arabs, Copts, and Francs present
of the life and religion, the loves and hates of ancient Pharaonic
times, set to music by the most celebrated of living Italian composers.

That an eastern prince should have commissioned Giuseppe Verdi to write
"Aida" for him, in his desire to emulate western sovereigns as a patron
of art, is an interesting fact, but not wonderful or significant.

The opera itself was freighted, however, with peculiar significance as
an artistic work, far surpassing that of the circumstances which gave it
origin, or which saw its first production in the mysterious land of the
Nile and Sphinx.

Originally a pupil, thoroughly imbued with the method and spirit of
Rossini, though never lacking in original quality, Verdi as a young man
shared the suffrages of admiring audiences with Donizetti and Bellini.
Even when he diverged widely from his parent stem and took rank as the
representative of the melodramatic school of music, he remained true to
the instincts of his Italian training.

The remarkable fact is that Verdi, at the age of fifty-eight, when it
might have been safely assumed that his theories and preferences were
finally crystallized, produced an opera in which he clasped hands with
the German enthusiast, who preached an art system radically opposed to