5 Pounds Cairo Opera House

Issued to mark the opening of the new Cairo Opera House on the Gezira Island complex, which replaced the original Khedivial Opera House destroyed by fire in 1971. That original building — inaugurated in 1869 for the festivities surrounding the opening of the Suez Canal — had stood for over a century before burning to the ground in a blaze attributed to an electrical fault. Egypt went nearly two decades without a dedicated opera venue.

The replacement facility was a gift from Japan, built under a bilateral cultural agreement and completed with Japanese government funding — an unusual arrangement that made this commemorative as much a diplomatic artifact as a national one.