For the 1871 Aïda premiere, at Cairo’s Khedivial Opera House, eminent French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette modeled the sets and costumes on the culture of Egypt’s Old Kingdom. Ever since then, Aïda productions have tended towards historical pageantry, often filling the stage with columns and obelisks, temples and tombs, chariots, warriors, and even an elephant or two.

Celebrated British designer Zandra Rhodes has taken a new approach to Verdi’s beloved opera, replacing towering masonry with shimmering light and richly saturated color, creating a polychrome world of soft fabrics, geometric designs, and motivic imagery that filters the arts of ancient Egypt through a contemporary prism.

But no design emerges without numerous experiments, sketches, and models. This exhibit displays some of Ms. Rhodes’s trial designs—fabrics, wigs, headpieces, and visual motifs—in various stages of development, all the way from rough sketches on paper to finished elements that can be seen onstage. By way of historical perspective, the exhibit also includes several photos from relatively traditional Aïda productions at San Francisco Opera.

Scott Foglesong, Guest Curator