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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Special Features Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Chocolate ripple over sunset sauce
By David BlakeCairo Symphony Orchestra, conductor Mostafa Nagui, soloist Ramzy Yassa. Main Hall, Cairo Opera House, 6 March.
One of the great unanswerables -- what were they like? How did three pianists of history play the piano? Beethoven, Liszt -- and Chopin. They were so important: they made the piano, made the present-day concert circuit, placed pianos on a pedestal from which they have never been displaced. Musical history has drowned them in words from which, of course, they have never recovered. Maybe, one day soon, the sixth memory-sense of music will give us the actual sounds they made. Until then, all there can be is the music they wrote for the piano. All were mythologised in their lifetime. People went crazy when they played -- deaths of ecstasy occurred as the hands flew -- they were the first pop stars. Chopin, they say, was part fairy, part wild tribesman from the Steppes of nowhere. Only his delicacy was a match for his strength, and as unconscious women were carried out from his concerts, he had George Sand as consolation.
This is where Ramzy Yassa comes in. The most important of all Egyptian musicians, and now an establishment official -- a post seldom even dreamt of by most pianists -- he has lately, it seems, fallen into an officialdom from which he has found it difficult to escape. Sad fate, said the whisperers. But Ramzy Yassa is a strong, healthy Upper Egyptian, equipped to deal with an establishment as easily as with Chopin. At Saturday's concert, the much-loved artist at last popped back out of his official shell, fresh as a rose, to demonstrate that all is well with him.
He delivered a performance of Chopin's first piano concerto as lively, warm and sturdy as the unforgettable tour de force of a few years back, here in this same hall. That night, it was Busoni, Liszt and Wagner. Tears flowed, including this reviewer's. And now here we are again, back in the same situation -- a celebratory reunion.
Chopin is standing up well to the unfashionable position classical music finds itself in at present, now in 1999. "Classics to the gallows" is today's song. But neither have we entered the overheated salon of the filthy rich -- those of 1830s Europe. No cities of the plains these. Instead we were transported to the vast landscapes of Chopin's beloved Poland -- torn, storm-swept, but ever courageous. And out of these, like Kubla Khan, did Chopin build his dream palace for piano and orchestra -- the first of two, in E minor. The key is melancholic, grey, cloud-tossed and doom-laden, nostalgic and beautifully formed. Just the ticket for a rowdy 1999 send-up.
But Chopin takes us inside the palace. Others things are on his mind besides war and loss. Resplendent women, rich stuffs, decor worth millions, the golden dinner service shines at table. Everything extravagant! The bill is never delivered till tomorrow in this sort of music.
Right at the start we find ourselves sprung into his miasmic fantasy. This is not a piano concerto at all -- it is a piano opera, ottocento bel canto, Bellini's Norma on the keys.
And so beautiful! Its purity shines forth. It is old-fashioned, and a redoubtable Chopin, one which puts the pianist first. The orchestral sound which surrounds the central voice is not much better than a small-town Saturday-night band at some rowdy party. Orchestrally, Chopin is no Tchaikovsky -- except at the piano itself, which is the star, displaying all those complex emotions. There are emanations of historical fatuity about it, with a bitter centre -- typical Chopin.
Mostafa Nagui directed the performance. He played it straight, as he did with the rest of the concert. No TV sugar frills, no 'lovely to see you' and then the knife. The blade goes in first, as always with Chopin. So there was nothing stale. Mr Robusto at the piano did the rest.
In the first movement, there are three mighty climaxes. The toughest is the last, a great shake. The Yassa hands disappeared into space as the vibratory trembling continued, and then down came the deep, resounding fortissimo. No flashing arms, but sheer body-power of the player did the trick, down again into the tonic resolution. We were home. Goal! Time to jump. We were also in pianoland of real, proper pianissimo.
History moves on. So does the piano. They are re-inventing it, and it is moving so fast that it is difficult to keep up. This performance made an heroic attempt.
Cairo Opera Company, Orchestra & Choir. Dance Theatre Troupe. Three Operas in One Hour from Short Stories by Youssef Idris. Libretto arranged by Sayed Higab. Music composed and conducted by Sherif Mohieddin. Director Mohamed Abul-Kheir. Gomhouriya Theatre, 4 March.
This project was premiered a few years ago. The production then was messy -- there was too much of it -- but at least, it had Mohieddin's music to save it. This time round there have been some changes to the production, but it is still the music that keeps it afloat. The trouble is that, visually, there is little difference between operas one and two. The first is a plain litigation tale of brothers fighting to possess each other's land. The second is a sad story of how education itself seems not to change things at all -- rather, it is the human element which propels to action, regardless of doctorates and scholarships. Both these stories appear to be set in a prison. Ropes, soldiers, elders, doctors, and deans resemble prison warders. The whole world looks grim. The third tale, by way of contrast, is rather pleasant -- a nice, sad story of ghostly haunting, dementia and eternity knocking at the door, seeping through the walls of a man's prison. No matter how he got there, he's in love with the lady in the next cell, and she's dead. She haunts him a bit, but of course his love for her can lead nowhere. We are left in prison with a man and a ghost.
The tales are told with understanding and compassion, and the acting is splendid. Before each small operatic cellular vision, there is a ballet performed by four dancers, providing what it is now chic to call "dance theatre", as an explanation of the plot. They are fine dancers -- but, as is usually the case with dance theatre, they are soon on the floor with their bottoms up. It destroys all time, place and identity. A floor is a floor. True, the two emanations of the third opera end up on the floor too, but the protagonists both sit upright, indulging in a charming, sad, yet brightly negative series of non-sequiturs, which is funny, appealing, and finally tragic. So we are in the Wozzeck world -- the children looking in at planktonic floaters, disrupted relics of a festering society, the big prison itself which we call life.
These are strong things for a 60-minute opera to deal with. This interesting show bravely sets out to avoid the pitfalls, and Mohieddin's music deliberately avoids any explanatory Puccinian thrust, in view of the limited time at his disposal. As music it is appealing, cleverly woven from small, colourful threads, amusing and wry. But there is not enough strength to thrust the scenes into raw emotion. We need a few more words -- music is all, but why are Shakespearean operas always so successful? In the end, the word strikes: Othello, Macbeth.
As they used to say, 'Okay, you're a genius, but where's your libretto?'
The players were excellent. Ashraf Suweilam as the seedy doctor in opera one, and Hossam Mostafa as the befuddled dean of number two, could not have been better. In number three, Mohamed Abul-Kheir was affecting as a male prisoner -- a sharp-edged display of charm and intelligence that have slipped off the line of reality. His lady ghost from the next-door cell was Niveen Allouba. She managed to make a sort of jewelled creature out of her role -- a ghost of special significance. This opera reaches a moving conclusion: these two Wozzeck-like people forlornly conversing with each other. All that has gone before matters less than what the end suggests. Could not this opera be called: A Work in Progress?
