Then the Khedive decided he would like Verdi to conduct the first performance, and he began to negotiate for that. Verdi asked twenty thousand dollars for writing the opera, and thirty thousand in case he went to Egypt. This was agreed, but when the time came to go, Verdi backed out; he was overcome with fear of seasickness and wouldn't go at any price. Then the scenery was painted in Paris, and when all was ready--lo! the scenery was a prisoner because the war had broken out in France! Everything had to wait a year, and during that time Verdi wrote and rewrote, making his opera one of the most beautiful in the world. Finally "Aïda" was produced, and the story of that night as told by the Italian critic Filippi is not out of place here, since the night is historic in opera "first nights:"
"The Arabians, even the rich, do not love our shows; they prefer the mewings of their tunes, the monotonous beatings of their drums, to all the melodies of the past, present, and future. It is a true miracle to see a turban in a theatre of Cairo. Sunday evening the opera house was crowded before the curtain rose. Many of the boxes were filled with women, who neither chatted nor rustled their robes. There was beauty and there was intelligence especially among the Greeks and the strangers of rank who abound in Cairo. For truth's sake I must add that, by the side of the most beautiful and richly dressed, were Coptic and Jewish faces, with strange head-dresses, impossible costumes, a howling of colours,--no one could deliberately have invented worse. The women of the harem could not be seen. They were in the first three boxes on the right, in the second gallery. Thick white muslin hid their faces from prying glances."
This gives a striking picture of that extraordinary "first night."
Verdi was born at a time of turmoil and political troubles, and his mother was one of the many women of the inhabitants of Roncole (where he was born) who took refuge in the church when soldiery invaded the village. There, near the Virgin, many of the women had thought themselves safe, but the men burst in, and a general massacre took place. Verdi's mother fled with her little son to the belfry and this alone saved to the world a wonderful genius.