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17-552: The opera house was built on the orders of the Khedive Ismail to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal . The Italian architect Pietro Avoscani (perhaps assisted by one Mario Rossi) designed the building. It seated approximately 850 people and was made mostly of wood. It was located between the districts of Azbakeya and Ismailyya in Egypt's capital city. Verdi 's opera Rigoletto

34-564: A state prisoner, until his death. He was later buried in Cairo . After the nationalist Urabi Revolt of 1882, Britain invaded Egypt in support of Tewfik Pasha, and established an occupation over the country . During this period, the Muhammad Ali Dynasty under Tewfik Pasha and his son Abbas II continued to rule Egypt and Sudan using the title Khedive , whilst still under nominal ( de jure ) Ottoman sovereignty until 1914. Abbas II of Egypt

51-702: The 1798 French invasion of Egypt and Napoleon 's defeat of Egyptian forces, which consisted largely of the ruling Mamluk military caste, the Ottoman Empire dispatched troops from Rumelia (the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire) under the command of Muhammad Ali Pasha to restore the Empire's authority in what had hitherto been an Ottoman province. However, upon the French defeat and departure, Muhammad Ali seized control of

68-560: The sultans and grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire , but most famously for the viceroy of Egypt from 1805 to 1914. It is attested in Persian poetry from the 10th century and was used as an Ottoman honorific from the 16th. It was borrowed into Ottoman Turkish directly from Persian. It was first used in Egypt, without official recognition, by Muhammad Ali Pasha , the ethnically Albanian governor of Ottoman Egypt and Turco-Egyptian Sudan from 1805 to 1848. The initially self-declared title

85-592: The Magnificent sealed an alliance with King Francis I of France in 1536, the French diplomats walked through the monumental gate then known as Bab-ı Ali (now Bâb-ı Hümâyûn ) in order to reach the Vizierate of Constantinople, seat of the Sultan's government. French being the language of diplomacy, the French translation Sublime Porte was soon adopted in most other European languages, including English, to refer not only to

102-592: The Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II to depose Ismail Pasha, and this was done on June 26, 1879. The more pliable Tewfik Pasha , Ismail's son, was made his successor as the new Khedive. Ismail Pasha left Egypt and initially went into exile to Naples , but was eventually permitted by Sultan Abdülhamid II to retire to his Palace of Emirgan on the Bosphorus in Constantinople . There he remained, more or less

119-603: The actual gate but as a metonymy for the Ottoman Empire. In the 18th century, a new great Italian-styled office building was built just west of Topkapi Palace area, on the other side of Alemdar Caddesi (Alemdar street). This became the location of the Grand Vizier and many ministries. Thereafter, this building, and the monumental gate leading to its courtyards, became known as the Sublime Porte ( Bab-ı Ali ); colloquially it

136-437: The building's location, is still called Opera Square (Meidan El Opera) 30°03′03″N 31°14′53″E  /  30.0507°N 31.2480°E  / 30.0507; 31.2480 Khedive Khedive ( / k ə ˈ d iː v / kə- DEEV ; Ottoman Turkish : خدیو , romanized :  hıdiv ; Arabic : خديوي , romanized :  khudaywī ) was an honorific title of Classical Persian origin used for

153-521: The country and declared himself ruler of Egypt, quickly consolidating an independent local powerbase. After repeated failed attempts to remove and kill him, in 1805, the Sublime Porte officially recognized Muhammad Ali as Pasha and Wāli (Governor) of Egypt. However, demonstrating his grander ambitions, he claimed for himself the higher title of Khedive, as did his successors, Abbas I , Sa'id I and Ibrahim Pasha . The Muhammad Ali dynasty 's use of

170-621: The gate leading to it, therefore became known as the "High Gate". This name referred first to a palace in Bursa , Turkey. After the Ottomans had conquered Constantinople , now Istanbul , the gate now known as the Imperial Gate ( Turkish : Bâb-ı Hümâyûn ), leading to the outermost courtyard of the Topkapı Palace , first became known as the "High Gate", or the "Sublime Porte". When Sultan Suleiman

187-500: The ground. The all-wooden building was quickly consumed, and only two statues made by Mohamed Hassan survived. After the original opera house was destroyed, Cairo was without an opera house for nearly two decades until the opening of the new Cairo Opera House in 1988. The site of the Khedivial Opera House has been rebuilt into a multi-story concrete car garage. The square (to the south of Al Ataba metro station) overlooking

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204-520: The title Khedive was not sanctioned by the Ottoman Empire until 1867 when Sultan Abdülaziz officially recognized it as the title of Ismail Pasha. Moreover, the Porte accepted Ismail's alteration of the royal line of succession to go from father to son, rather than brother to brother, as was the tradition in the Ottoman Empire, and Arab dynasties. In May 1879, the United Kingdom and France began pressuring

221-521: Was a synecdoche or metaphor used to refer collectively to the central government of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul . The name has its origins in the old practice in which the ruler announced his official decisions and judgements at the gate of his palace. This was the practice in the Byzantine Empire and it was also adopted by Ottoman Turk sultans since Orhan I . The palace of the sultan, or

238-630: Was also known as the Gate of the Pasha ( paşa kapusu ). The building was badly damaged by fire in 1911. Today, the buildings house the Istanbul Governor's Office . "Sublime Porte" was used in the context of diplomacy by Western states, as their diplomats were received at the porte (meaning "gate"). During the Second Constitutional Era of the Empire after 1908 (see Young Turk Revolution ),

255-626: Was deposed by the British in 1914, and Egypt was declared a protectorate of Britain , the Sultanate of Egypt , which was ruled by Abbas's uncle Hussein Kamel under the title of Sultan. Sublime Porte The Sublime Porte , also known as the Ottoman Porte or High Porte ( Ottoman Turkish : باب عالی , romanized :  Bāb-ı Ālī or Babıali ; Turkish pronunciation: [baːbɯˈaːliː] ),

272-502: Was officially recognized by the Ottoman government in 1867 and used subsequently by Isma'il Pasha of Egypt and his dynastic successors until 1914. The term entered Arabic in Egypt in the 1850s. This title is recorded in English since 1867, borrowed from French khédive , in turn from Ottoman Turkish خدیو hıdiv , from Classical Persian خدیو khidēv ("lord"). Following

289-529: Was the first opera performed at the opera house on 1 November 1869. Ismail planned a grander exhibition for his new theatre. After months of delay due to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War , Verdi's new opera, Aida (set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt ), received its world premiere at the Khedivial Opera House on 24 December 1871. In the early morning hours of 28 October 1971, the opera house burned to

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