Night at the Cairo Opera House

Puccini, Japan, and Egypt’s Cultural Ambitions

What comes to mind when you think of Egypt? Pyramids, pharaohs, mummies, or perhaps Imhotep from The Mummy series?

During my trip to Egypt in January 2026, I did something a normal tourist wouldn’t do: I went to an opera!

An Unexpected Discovery

It all started on my second night in Cairo.

While travelling around the city, I noticed a “mosque” with a red dome. A red mosque? That was bold, I thought. Out of curiosity, I looked it up, and discovered that the building was not a mosque.

It was the Cairo Opera House!

Does Egypt have an opera house? I was genuinely surprised. Not being biased or anything, but when I think of Egypt, all I can think of is its long list of thousands-of-years-old pharaoh-related heritage.

Then I recalled watching the Grand Egyptian Museum’s opening ceremony before my departure. Indeed, there were some impressive singers. Perhaps Egypt has a big group of opera fans?

The next day, when I realised I had a free evening, the image of the opera house flashed back into my mind. What show do they put on there?

Just a few clips; I visited the Cairo Opera Company’s website. It happened that they were performing two one-act operas by Giacomo Puccini that very evening: Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi.

Yes, Puccini, the composer of the world-famous operas Madama Butterfly and Turandot.

And it got better, the website said English subtitles would be available throughout the performance. Perfect for a tourist like me.

I asked my friend if she would be interested in the opera. She was intrigued as well. So I kept looking up the ticket price.

Surprisingly, the price is super low, so low that I thought I had missed a zero.

For those who didn’t know much about opera, watching an opera usually isn’t cheap entertainment. A typical production can easily last three hours, with an orchestra, chorus, singers, and elaborate background sets and costumes.

Here’s a genuine example. Years ago, I saw La Traviata at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Even though my seat was quite high up in the theatre, it still cost me US$55 for one ticket.

Now, guess how much I paid for a seat in the parterre/stall area of the Cairo Opera House?

210 Egyptian pounds. Only US$4–5!

If you are a performance lover like me, I bet you can understand my surprise.

My curiosity didn’t end there, I looked further down into why these tickets were so affordable.

It turned out that the Egyptian government has sponsored its cultural activities since the 1950s and 1960s, when then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser attempted to implement what was later called Nasserism, an Arab Socialism.

Since that time, live performances have been considered a social benefit for the public to appreciate, regardless of the audience’s social status. This policy was also seen as an initiative to retain the government officials, who, although not being paid much, could enjoy these high-class entertainments once in a while.

The research has stopped for now. Naturally, I booked the tickets.

A Japanese Tie

On the night of the opera, I found it a bit difficult to find the right door to the show entrance. I even accidentally entered a prayer room and nearly interrupted an evening prayer.

It was late January, but the festive Christmas and New Year decorations were still hanging everywhere, flashing their lights to welcome us, and the Islamic dome roof proudly showed off its red hat, as if telling us that the opera house is one of a kind.

Here’s a fun fact I discovered later: the modern Cairo Opera House is a historical testament to Egyptian-Japanese friendship.

The story began with its predecessor, the Khedivial Opera House.

Opened in 1869 at the instruction of Khedive Ismail of Egypt, the opera house made history as the first opera house in Africa and the Middle East.

The construction was hasty because Ismail was eager to unveil the opera house alongside the celebrations for the Suez Canal opening; hence, the building was largely made of wood.

The results? It survived for just over a century before a devastating fire destroyed it completely in October 1971.

Unfortunately, the Egyptian government was unable to rebuild the place right away due to years of wars in the Middle East and the subsequent inflation that hit the domestic economy hard.

Finally, aid arrived in 1983, when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak visited Japan.

The timing couldn’t be better. Following the 1973 oil crisis, Japan was eager to strengthen its ties with Middle Eastern countries. Beyond trade alliances, cultural exchange was also considered a viable option.

Mubarak’s visit paid off. The Japanese government was willing to offer tens of billions of yen to support Egypt’s cultural restoration.

The new Cairo Opera House was built, expanding its reach as Cairo’s National Cultural Centre and becoming a new home for all the performing arts. That means the compound needed to provide a roof for a much larger crowd; it now hosts multiple performance spaces, a gallery, a museum, a music library, and facilities for various performing companies.

As it expanded, the Cairo Opera House had to scout a new location, and it found the perfect spot in the Zamalek area, a safe, chic neighbourhood home to numerous embassies, galleries, and bookshops. (Side note: if you’re into independent bookstores and local artworks, Zamalek is definitely worth exploring.)

The architecture itself is another highlight of the story.

The long-established Japanese architectural firm Nikken Sekkei designed it, with Koichiro Shikida as the principal architect, who successfully blended the cultures of two countries into his design. He took inspiration from the traditional mosque, the Islamic eight-pointed star, the chrysanthemum symbol of the Japanese Emperor (a giant floral decoration was carved on the ceiling of the Main Hall, and you can find the picture here), and open corridors that set it apart from the usual elaborate Baroque style (and got me lost in the opera house, as it hid the main gate behind those Japanese minimalism poles).

Puccini in Cairo

The opera lasted almost three hours, starting with Suor Angelica, followed by Gianni Schicchi.

Suor Angelica: A Mother’s Grief

“Suor Angelica” tells of a tragedy where a young woman from a family was forced to stay at a convent after giving birth to a child outside marriage.

Separated and with no news from her son, Angelica learned one day from her aunt that her son had died of illness two years earlier.

Feeling hopeless, Angelica decided to take her own life with poison. But as she approached death, she remembered that the Catholic Church condemns suicide; hence, she would not be able to reunite with her son in heaven. She begged Mother Mary for forgiveness. In the final scene, Mother Mary took pity on her and let her to see a vision of her son before closing her eyes.

Normally, I don’t enjoy tragedies, especially stories written a century ago where women were treated unfairly. However, Rasha Talaat, who played Angelica and gave her all, sang so devotedly that I almost felt the despair of this sorrowful mother. Laila Ibrahim portrayed the cold and demanding aunt, whose mezzo-soprano voice stunned the whole crowd. I also liked Sister Genovieffa, played by Nora El Alfy, for being the rare hopeful voice throughout the show.

Suor Angelica’s best-known aria is “Senza Mamma”, sung by Angelica while mourning her son. You can watch Ermonela Jaho’s performance at the Royal Opera House here.

Gianni Schicchi: Greed and Tricks Blended with a Little Romance

The second half of the evening shifted the mood. Gianni Schicchi is a comedy inspired by Dante’s Inferno.

The story set foot in Florence, began with the death of a wealthy businessman, Buoso Donati, who left all his fortune to a monastery, a result not welcomed by his greedy relatives.

Determined to secure their share of the inheritance, they asked Gianni Schicchi for help. Schicchi came from an ordinary family and was known for his tricks. He had no interest in getting his hands dirty, but later changed his mind when his beloved daughter begged him to do so so she could marry a young man from that family.

As clever as Schicchi was, he played the deceased and tricked both the doctor and the notary. Eventually, he was given the chance to redeclare the will. Not surprisingly, he lied to those relatives again and gave the most valuable assets to himself, which he then gave to his daughter as her wedding dowry.

What I found intriguing was the scene where those relatives argued and shouted over the inheritance. They all sang at once, trying to drown each other out; it should have sounded messy and disturbing, but strangely, the singers sang with a special harmony that I swear sounded perfectly coordinated.

You are probably familiar with a very recognisable aria from the show, “O mio babbino caro,” sung by the daughter, Lauretta, as she pleads with her father to help save her love. Here’s my favourite version, sung by the young vocal prodigy Amira Willighagen in 2015.

Cairo Opera House in the History Lane

After the performance, we wandered down a long corridor and came across a historical exhibition. It was like opening a treasure box!

Among those photographs, costumes, and historical documents, arguably the most distinctive were the costumes from one of the world’s most famous operas, Verdi’s Aida. It turned out that its world premiere took place in Cairo in 1871.

You may have guessed it by now, yes, the venue was the Khedivial Opera House we mentioned earlier.

Back then, Khedive Ismail had a vision for Egypt. He wanted Egypt to be seen as civilised and rich in culture, like Europe’s big cities. He planned to build an opera house in time for the Suez Canal’s opening celebration in 1869. Two years later, he commissioned Verdi to compose the greatest opera of the time, Aida. He even paid a stunning fee of 150,000 francs to secure the deal.

I watched the show once at school years ago, and I still vividly remember the grand Egyptian troop and glamorous palace staging. For those who have never seen it, check out the Metropolitan Opera’s 1988 production, particularly the famous “Triumphal March,” a song you’ll probably recognise from many sports events.

From Aida to the Grand Egyptian Museum

More than 150 years after the opening of the Khedivial Opera House, Egypt hosted another spectacular event—the all-star grand opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in November 2025.

It took the Grand Egyptian Museum two decades to finally open. The wait was totally worth it. The opening ceremony featured an elaborate programme of orchestral music, opera singers, drone displays, laser projections, acrobatic performances, and, above all, a fascinating section where Egyptian obelisks around the world were shown on the big screen one by one for a grand lighting show.

Among the performers were Egyptian-American musical theatre actress Shereen Ahmed, internationally acclaimed soprano Fatma Said, and tenor Ragaa El-Din Ahmed.

I rewatched the ceremony several times and felt deeply moved. In 1869, Egypt showcased its cultural strength to the world with a new opera house; now, in 2025, it has invited the world back to open a museum dedicated to one of our oldest civilisations.

The political and economic circumstances of the two were no doubt different, but the willfulness to leverage cultural demonstration to strengthen its international status is certainly admirable.

Watch the Grand Egyptian Museum opening ceremony on YouTube below if you haven’t already done so.

Would You Go to an Opera in Egypt?

When I first spotted that red dome in Cairo, I had absolutely no idea it would lead me down this rabbit hole.

I was curious about a building I mistook for a mosque. Two days later, I was sitting in the Cairo Opera House watching Puccini. Afterwards, I found myself researching the Suez Canal, the Japanese Cultural Fund, and the world premiere of Aida.

Not bad for an unplanned evening that cost me just 210 Egyptian pounds.

The Cairo Opera House and the Cairo Opera Company’s deep historical roots are as brilliant as their performances. If you’re planning a trip to Egypt, don’t forget to check their calendar. You might find something unexpected, some musical, and some historical.

I hope you enjoy the reading. Feel free to leave a comment or questions below, or email me. More travel stories and theatre reviews await you on this Second Star to the Right website.

And if you’re interested in more of my Egyptian adventures, you can also listen to the first episode of my travel and psychology podcast, “The Escape Lab (出走研究所)”, where I talk about the chaos and warmth when travelling in Egypt.