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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 May 1999 Issue No. 428 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 May 1999 Issue No. 428
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Special Focus Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Snoopy taboos
By David BlakeJoffrey Ballet; Main Hall: Cairo Opera House, 8-14 May
The prestigious Joffrey Ballet of Chicago is visiting the Cairo Opera House this coming week. The showing is of Joffrey first grade works which have put it on a par with American Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Bolshoi and London Royal.
Grand opera has houses to live in, but the ballet has not a place to rest its head -- or feet. History shows the ballet began respectably enough, Milan, Paris, Russia, but in spite of always having the public success and the ability to bring in the cash to foundering opera houses in which they were no more than paying guests, they slipped into touring like the early troubadours.
Once ballet hit the roads of the world it stayed there. Even Diagheliev and his company never had a home. Not so the Joffrey. They did better. They settled in Chicago, bought land, built places to work in and performed finally in the Chicago Civic Opera and, best of all, on the stage spaces of the Auditorium Theatre, one of the four best stages of the world.
The Joffrey Ballet in action
The Joffrey Company has had the luck to be managed by dedicated professionals, its founder-owner Ribert Joffrey (d. 1988), its resident choreographer, Gerald Arpino, and Jack R Lemmon, executive director. These three have been neither sleeping saints nor macho pushabouts from the business world, but men of long training in the arts of the dance in America: ideas, rhythms and inspirations from Duncan to Martha Graham, through Ballet Theatre and the assembled remnants of the gorgeous Diagheliev Ballet which America had inherited. To this they added their own practical, poetic, racy American spirit. They have rolled around in all the dance theatre taboos, floated through the classics and added their own special quality -- speed to rival the Alvin Ailey and the drama of the Bolshoi.
From the frayed ends of the European ballet scene the Joffrey found their own inspiration and tolerance of historic scenarios. They have been everywhere, seen a lot, know the scene, supped with the media gorgons and survived, to go off and offer them hints on how to arrange their own orgies. Arpino choreographed years ago sequences that are still used nowadays on commercial TV. His ballets have been seen in China, Australia, Jordan, Syria as well as Euro-America.
Cairo now has the opportunity to see the Joffrey in its wide-ranging programme.
Programme A (8-11 May) will most likely include the following:
J O Strauss's Kettentanz, -- imperial Vienna, woods, forests, court dances, but nothing nostalgic -- choreographed by Arpino; Sea Shadow: Arpino's version of Ravel's Undine, composed around the legend of the water nymph, Ondine, who bewitches a wandering prince and entices him to the bottom of the sea; and Creative Force, an abstract ensemble, a company dance ending in hectic speeds, choreographed by the American Laura Dean, music by John Zeretzka.
Programme B (12-14 May) will most likely include:
Viva Vivaldi: Classic style ballet for 17 dancers, fast and furious to Vivaldi's music; Monotones I and II, a strange mystic ballet which nonetheless remains sheer dance, choreographed by Frederick Ashton, music by Eric Satie; L'Air D'Esprit: A tribute to the greatest ballerina of the 20th century, even eclipsing Pavlova, the Russian from St Petersburg, Olga Spessivtzeva; and Light Rain: East-West blend score by Adams Gauthier, and an anniversary gift by Arpino to the company -- to demonstrate its freedom and sheer pleasure and virtuosity.
Chocolates and things, they used to call the material offered by touring ballet companies. Some of the Joffrey's chocolates have explosive centres, which blow up the taboos. Fascinating.
Miguel Angel Estrella; Piano concert on the 150th anniversary of the death of Chopin, in aid of the Association of Upper Egyptian Education and Development; Gomhouria Theatre, 29 April
It is difficult to like the shape of Miguel Angel Estrella playing. He plays flat, an accepted method of playing the piano. He's a small man, gentle, and as he plays he blends intimately with the instrument's shape. He is a nice man, but the piano is not a nice instrument -- devious, capricious and profoundly unfriendly.
Playing flat means playing velvet. His tone is velvety, suited to Scarlatti maybe -- to Couperin and Fauré, though Fauré does expect sometimes more than velvet. As Estrella's hands move over the keys at speed, they flap like the movements of a sea mammal swimming. Angel Estrella suggests peace, calm, tranquillity and warm seas. Neither Faust nor the Erl Konig will swim this way.
So what about Bach? His preludes and fugues formed the first part of the programme. Before the concert, there was much talk from those responsible for it, followed by talks from the artist. The special purpose of this concert may have required talk -- but so much! Like Hamlet, Estrella talked too much. He even broke into the piano pieces when in full swing to add a few more words. Cortot used to do this, but Cortot was something else, mythical.
As the pianist rippled into the first Bach piece, the effect was enchanting. No majestic formality, but friendly, warm and relaxed. As the next two pieces continued the flow, the tone never varied, and doubts set in. It's OK to be uncle, but uncles can overdo their mission to be smiling benefactors. Estrella's playing was impressionistic, Debussy in a warm doze. Comfortable, but no Bach presence.
This Argentinian player is full of ideas, silences, stops, gear changes, elevations -- but always in velvet. Where were the great ghosts of Bach players? Landowska, Lucille Wallace and, greatest of all, Harold Bauer. All these players could give sweet and soft Bach, but never drowsy. There is nothing restful about J S B, and that is one of the tenets of music. He after all carries aloft the lamp of God.
The Beethoven Sonata in F major op.10 suggested new tones would come, which they did. The sonata opens whispering two ghostly chords, followed by small grace note turns. And it never leaves this design in peace. It is twisted and turned, spooky and unreasonable. Estrella did turn it into a cinematic thriller. It was an original way of using soft-touch Beethoven in strong-armed music.
The concluding Chopin pieces, Mazurkas, and the famous sonata were a demonstration that soft and flat doesn't suit Chopin at all.
But dear Bach was swimming in the deep blue seas of Marsa Matrouh and, later, after a siesta, Beethoven was pursued in a soft-shoe chase. Bank robbery or not, Estrella brought his concert to a velvet finish.
