Giuseppe Verdi Verdi and Giuseppina decided to adopt Carlo's great-niece Filomena Maria Verdi, then seven years old, as their own child. She was to marry in 1878 the son of Verdi's friend and lawyer Angelo Carrara and her family became eventually the heirs of Verdi's estate. "Aida" was commissioned by the Egyptian government for the opera house built by the Khedive Isma'il Pasha to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The opera house actually opened with a production of "Rigoletto". The prose libretto in French by Camille du Locle, based on a scenario by the Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, was
Suez Canal Company Lessups also had to fight back against Robert Stephenson's and even Enfantin's expert opinions on the feasibility of the canal. Lesseps formed an organization of international engineers (the International Commission for the piercing of the isthmus of Suez) to again study the canal route in late 1855, and its results were released to the general public. In January 1856, Said granted a second concession to Lessup's company which replaced the first concession. This concession defined the canal as a direct route, but also stipulated a freshwater canal from the Nile to Lake Timsah. Again, mining and land rights were included