which differentiate it from the music of Verdi’s other operas and the works of his predecessors and contemporaries, “Aida” is a companion of all the operas for which Meyerbeer set a model when he wrote his works for the Academie Nationale in Paris—­the great pageant operas like “Le Prophete,” “Lohengrin,” and Goldmark’s “Queen of Sheba.”  With the last it shares one element which brings it into relationship also with a number of much younger and less significant works—­operas like Mascagni’s “Iris,” Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” and Giordano’s “Siberia.”  In the score of “Aida” there is a slight infusion of that local color which is lavishly employed in decorating its externals.  The pomp and pageantry of the drama are Egyptian and ancient; the play’s natural and artificial environment is Egyptian and ancient; two bits of its music are Oriental, possibly Egyptian, and not impossibly ancient.  But in everything else “Aida” is an Italian opera.  The story plays in ancient Egypt, and its inventor was an archaeologist deeply versed in Egyptian antiquities, but I have yet to hear that Mariette Bey, who wrote the scenario of the drama, ever claimed an historical foundation for it or pretended that anything in its story was characteristically Egyptian.  Circumstances wholly fortuitous give a strong tinge of antiquity and nationalism to the last scene; but, if the ancient Egyptians were more addicted than any other people to burying malefactors alive, the fact is not of record; and the picture as we have it in the opera was not conceived by Mariette Bey, but by Verdi while working hand in hand with the original author of the libretto, which, though designed for an Italian performance, was first written in French prose.

The Italian Theatre in Cairo was built by the khedive, Ismail Pacha, and opened in November, 1869.  It is extremely likely that the thought of the advantage which would accrue to the house, could it be opened with a new piece by the greatest of living Italian opera composers, had entered the mind of the khedive or his advisers; but it does not seem to have occurred to them in time to insure such a work for the opening.  Nevertheless, long before the inauguration of the theatre a letter was sent to Verdi asking him if he would write an opera on an Egyptian subject, and if so, on what terms.  The opportunity was a rare one, and appealed to the composer, who had written “Les Vepres Siciliennes” and “Don Carlos” for Paris, “La Forza del Destino” for St. Petersburg, and had not honored an Italian stage with a new work for ten years.  But the suggestion that he state his terms embarrassed him.  So he wrote to his friend Muzio and asked him what to do.  Muzio had acquired much more worldly wisdom than ever came to the share of the great genius, and he replied sententiously:  “Demand 4000 pounds sterling for your score.  If they ask you to go and mount the piece and direct the rehearsals, fix the sum at 6000 pounds.”