What could be more spectacular than a live performance of Verdi's masterpiece opera Aida in front of its spiritual home, the Giza Pyramids, just outside Cairo? But if you can't make it to Egypt, the Cairo Opera House is performing it at Beijing's National Center for the Performing Arts from July 10 to 13.

The Cairo Opera House will bring a huge cast and crew of more than 300 to Beijing, including the orchestra, chorus, ballet dancers and technicians along with the stage, accessories and decorations.

Stage engineer and setting designer Mahmoud Haggag visited the venue earlier this year and promised to present one of the most splendid productions of Aida.

There will be a 9-m-tall, 14-m-wide statue of Pharaoh, six huge stone pillars, a 20-m-long ship, the luxurious room of the Egyptian princess Amneris and the 5-m-tall war chariot commanded by the general Radames.

"The new National Center for the Performing Arts has the most advanced theater facilities which make many possibilities come true," says Haggag.

"The triumphal march composed of 500 performers and including 200 locals from Beijing will be one of the most lavish things you have ever seen. And the whole production will show a noticeable improvement in facilities over previous shows," says Haggag.

Cairo Opera House artistic director Abdel-Moneim Kameto is promising that this, his fourth Aida, will offer "a new vision" of the ballet.

The background to the conception of Aida is suitably noteworthy.

As part of the celebrations of the opening of the Suez Canal in November 1869, the Khedive of Egypt built a new opera house in Cairo and approached Verdi about the composition of an inaugural ode. The composer declined somewhat haughtily, saying he was "not accustomed to compose occasional pieces".