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
Raid on the Suez Canal Sudan, was commander-in-chief and led mostly British Indian Army divisions, together with the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, local formations and the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. 30,000 of the troops stationed in Egypt manned defences along the Suez Canal. The Ottomans had only three available routes to reach the Suez Canal through the road-less and waterless Sinai Peninsula. A coastal advance that would have water supplies and usable tracks, but would be within range of Royal Navy warships. A central route from Beersheba to Ismailia or a southern track between El Kossaima and the Suez Canal. The central route