 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 7 - 13 October 1999 Issue No. 450 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 7 - 13 October 1999 Issue No. 450
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Interview Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Quick stepping all the way
By David BlakeCairo Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven Concert; Torston Janicke (Solo Violin); Ahmed El-Saedi (Conductor); Cairo Opera House, 2 October
Seven portentous chords open this piece -- Beethoven's Prometheus Overture op. 33. Prometheus was a Titan who stole the holy fire of heaven and for this outrage the gods chained him to a rock and sent an avenging eagle to daily pick out his self-renewing liver. But the traitor to heaven's fiery gates was really the spirit of forethought which seemed to have abandoned him when he stole the fire from heaven.
Usually this music sounds titanic but El-Saedi's reading of the grisly scene was a sort of party, a quite frightening presentation of energy incarnate. Where was the eagle, where the liver and where God? It didn't really matter -- the party itself more than compensated for the missing guests.
Beethoven's sympathies were for the thieving hero, more sinned against than sinning. God, the liver and the bird became symbolic powers rather than living forces in this tale of barbarous and capricious folly. The Greeks had a long, cool, oblique view of religion. Humanity itself became the gods, as Cocteau wrote, never the immortals. It was energy permutated into people who mattered to them. So the tale is rightly reversed by El-Saedi. The conductor really let himself and the orchestra go flat out until they themselves became the element of energy.
The concert continued through Beethoven's apotheosis of the divine fiddle of Apollo, made manifest before our astonished audio apparatus. The second item was on the programme was Beethoven's Violin Concerto op. 93 in F Major with soloist Torsten Janicke.
This remarkable phenomenon has been here before, and made the same irresistible impression. His playing seems to have no limits. He is multi-faceted. He astounds with one passage of perfect mastery and is ready with another, following close on. It is a procession of musical wonders and all are done with a perfect technique and with a slight touch of indifference to his own flawless style.
This concerto, of course, has an exalted position amongst fiddle concertos. It is not merely bravura and dazzle which Beethoven was after but the strange, exalted depths the violin can penetrate. If these areas are beyond the player who merely respects the notes and aura of the shiny, immaculate virtuosity surrounding it, the designs will fall. But they are the beginning not the end of the sublime, capricious metamorphosis of this work. It is a classic monolith which stands before any violinist who seeks to enter the world of the accepted performer in the great tradition.
photo: Sherif Sonbol
Simplicity is one of Beethoven's trickiest trademarks, a formal frontage forever melting and merging with the changing landscape of the classic it sends out into space. It can be frightening. It's face is so beautiful it dazzles player and audience alike, but still beauty is not the end. In the second movement there are modulatory changes and repeats done with arches of trills at all tones and speed -- enough to try the angels.
This particular angel, Janicke, like Merlin, has everything in arm, hand, wrist and finger to explore the landscape stretching out before him. The vibrato is subtle, then darkens like bronze in waves of pattern only to soar again into the realms of a later transparency. El-Saedi was never gentle or indulgent in these passages but the way the instruments floated slender tones up and over the richly spread surface was breathtaking.
And this violin sang all the way. Strange creature -- a wooden box held together by glue -- to bear the strain of self-revelations so totally; a broken heart, a sudden flood of sunshine already silvering to moonlight; the voice of the elements. Janicke was given a real and properly deserved ovation.
Cairo Opera Company, Cairo Opera Orchestra, Mozart's Bastien and Bastienne, Singspiel in One Act. Sherif Mohieddin (Conductor), Neveen Allouba (Arabic dialogue). Cairo Opera House Small Hall, 3 October.
This pretty snippet of Mozart in his early teens, before he plunged into the dark dreams of the big, sombre worlds inhabited by Don Giovanni and Figaro, still shows little Mr Sweet and Sour possessed of enough weldschemertz.
Bastien and Bastienne already has shadows. It suggest a last days of empire feel. The soprano's music is shadowy and full of that hopeless melancholy Mozart breathed over all his music -- the wonderous isle of Cythera of poets from Horace to Cavafy. Irresistible music, so full of tenderness and resignation.
Amira Selim sang the brief role without a flaw -- the voice completely right-sounding for the young-ancient tones demanded. She floated and swung up easily to the top. Her lower voice is gaining power and the useful middle is merging both poles. She no longer sounds a freak voice but a proper operatic soprano who merits serious roles. Mozart suits her at present though other composers will come.
Tamer Tawfik always reminds one of the unforgettable power he brings to the messenger from the first act of Aida. He is dramatic but on the heavy side for this role. He and Amira Selim made their own confrontation with the very Viennese Colas of Abdel-Wahab El-Sayed who added a whiff of stronger perfume to this light, bright little work.
It was performed beautifully fast and amusingly by the Cairo Opera Orchestra with Sherif Mohieddin showing that touch of sharpness he brings to Mozart opera. The speaking of the dialogue caused the singers trouble. They became almost inaudible, a habit of opera singers trained to project. They project the words but they have no bite when the reduced volume forces them into plain speech.
