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 expanded channel open for business in a ceremony on 6 August 2015. When built, the canal was long and deep. After several enlargements, it is long, deep and wide. It consists of the northern access channel of , the canal itself of and the southern access channel of . The so-called "New Suez Canal", functional since 6 August 2015, currently has a new parallel canal in the middle part, with its length over . The current parameters of the Suez Canal, including both individual canals of the parallel section are: depth and width at least (that width measured at of