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 Société Générale was interested in his shares of the Suez Canal Company in exchange for paying off the debt installment, however, the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli responded quickly and with permission from parliament and Queen Victoria received a loan from Lionel de Rothschild in the amount of 4 million pounds to purchase the 177,000 shares from Ismail on behalf of the British government. This offer was slightly greater than the french offer, and Ismail physically delivered his share certificates to the British consulate. By December 1875 Britain became the largest shareholder of the Suez Canal Company, owning 44 percent