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Al-Ahram Weekly 16 - 22 March 2000 Issue No. 473 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 16 - 22 March 2000 Issue No. 473
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Footling conversations
By David Blake
Maria Rosa Y Su Ballet Español, Cairo Opera House, Main Hall, 7 March
The first night of this company's debut on the Cairo scene was ill-conceived. First it was a mink and diamonds audience, always a problem. The socio-dip crowd appear to have plenty of everything but they are short on applause and personal contact -- the only two things a flamenco ballet must have, whether at opera house or late night cabaret. They need love and contact. If this bond is lacking the whole thing falls to the ground.
And so did the first night. No one loved them. They, the company, stamped the best way they could in this chilly atmosphere, did their best with the body twirls and southern, glaring confrontation which is part of the flamenco. But the audience seemed to be elsewhere. Had the company been more brash and forthcoming, they might have broken the ice, but it is really a small dance company made up of nice, young and fresh dancers, who all look fine and flowery in their immaculately tailored clothes. But, except for two dancers, the show was entirely lacking in the stylish effrontery true flamenco needs. There was not a rough edge in sight or a trace of smoky street audacity. No insolent twirls and flips of the women's dresses, no long snake like trains gushing out behind the goddesses whose glares suggest they could eat the audience for supper and above all, no inky clad men, dangerous like pythons, to hoot, stand and flash their loins to the ceiling. Pity, because the company is stylish in it's way.
It is a corps de ballet and on the first night it had no stars. The second evening show, however, brought people slightly lower down the steps of the glitz parade that Cairo has become on these occasions. Not a Rolls or Daimler in sight, but people count more than cars in a theatre seat. The dancers found a warmer temperature and a few more seats were sold in the authentic manner. Socio-dip is lovely to look at but not to listen to if you are a working dancer up there on stage.
Of course true flamenco, like a dazzle audience, has everything. But there must be a few people who glitter, not just stones. This second night produced two.
Jose Triguero, "a lyre bird", and Maria Rosa in her dignity
photo: Mohamed Wassim
Maria Rosa's dance routines these days are not the sort to send audiences into fits and shouts. Her foot technique, the only thing she offers us because movement was not to her liking, was rather dim. But the rat-a-tat-tat crescendos and the steamroller motion as a true flamenco danseuse were not there. She looked the part, but the part had mostly gone. Cairo's special dancer, Sahar Helmi, has the right flash and physical allure to demonstrate the real thing. But Maria Rosa was always erect and kept her dignity.
This left the audience in a quandary. Questions were asked. Where was the flashing man, he with the Antonio-like sheer force? He came. He performed on these two occasions like a true flamenco dancer. The streets muscled themselves onto the stage, central position, and we got at last the authentic foot sound. He is tall for Spanish dance, handsome, outstanding and noisy. His feet are not conversational. They shout commands and are alluring and erotic. Power and its display are one of the thrills of flamenco. He had it as he twirled his magnificence at the audience, flipping his coat tails and impudently displaying his bottom.
The place lit up and so did his energy because there was no other dancer around to even shadow his electric glow. His name is Jose Tiguero and he is the company's chief bailarines.
He wore, instead of black, a shade of fawn which gave him a touch of glitz foreign to the austerities of true flamenco. He was dancing in a bright light. His affect would have been more overwhelming if he had stamped and strutted in the shadows. He had plenty of personal light to give of his own. He looked like a lyre bird stamping around his self made palace of wonders and needed no light from the production. As the company foot tapped its way politely to the end, they had done well. But it was the man in brown who won the night.
Oboe recital, Ashraf Afifi (Oboe), Wael Farouk (Piano), Cairo Opera House, Small Hall, 6 March
The oboe is not everyone's instrument. It lacks the tonal allure of the clarinet, which has a smear of sugar beloved by Mozart. The oboe lacks the tear in the voice the clarinet has but it can make a long stream of beautiful tone and can hold its own in an orchestra.
It has strange colours and a suave tone unique in a band. It produces sudden wails of wound and was loved by players of the heroic days of jazz. It is unique but lacks the tragic largesse of another unique instrument, the saxophone.
Ashraf Afifi is a rare oboist. He has a sense of humour and can get the strange thing to imitate itself.
An oboe song of days gone by, There's a devil in me that's trying to get out, was not included in the programme which was a pity because the oboe wail used to be famous. The instrument is difficult to play. You have to have a breath like a Wagnerian singer to show the technical powers of this instrument, which can sound truly awful if not played properly. The tones sent aloft should be wrapped in a cloak of breath.
Then came the Meditation from the opera Thaïs. If ever a song needed a string sound, this is it. So the Meditation was really like an operatic aria without the tears which Massenet meant.
Bach was given with a Siciliano, and this was the best song of all in the concert. With Wael Farouk, Afifi might have had trouble. Farouk has a limpid pianissimo which, like the good old-fashioned pianist used to, carried very gently and without effort to the furthest corners of any concert hall. Used mezzo, it would have drowned the oboe, but this pianist provided instead yards of velvet over which the oboe sailed at ease.
This was an intriguing concert -- way off the dazzle beams of the hyped ones and given with some wit, great love and understanding. If it is for anything at all, the modern concert world, it is no longer, really, for such people. Afifi and Farouk -- let us hope that they escape and their talents take flight so to escape the manipulative boredom that threatens the music world everywhere.
Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra V, Ernst Kovacic (Violin Soloist and Conductor), Cairo Opera House, Main Hall,11 March
Richard Strauss said that there are no bad orchestras, only bad conductors. After the unseemly and noisy racket the poor Cairo Symphony Orchestra has been made to deliver lately by its local bosses, it is a joy to hear Ernst Kovacic of Austria showing the Cairo Symphony and a few faithful admirers that this city really has a treasure -- a living one and not a mummy -- in the Cairo Symphony Orchestra.
In a small, almost unannounced concert, Kovacic produced as if by magic a revelatory, gleaming display of real musicianship. From Mozart's Divertimenti and then Haydn's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in C major with Kovacic playing the violin, from the first note to the last he proved himself to be a supreme and unique player. Tone power and musicality made the Haydn the highlight of the concert.
Then Puccini and I Crisantemi, ending with Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for String Quartet and String Orchestra. To define musicality, of course, you do not need words, you need the notes and what is done by them and the orchestra. It was soon made clear that we were in the presence of a master conductor rescuing a band of war-torn angels to complete the resurrection, a life of pleasure and bliss. They gave a dazzle and vitality to the two Mozart pieces. This was followed by a deep, richly Augustan Haydn we seldom hear -- warm, grandiose, bursting with life and colour. Old Papa Haydn had gone over the Pyramids into the dust and this genuine, classic master was in his place.
Can this next thing, I Crisantemi, be pre-Madame Butterfly? Murky, slumberous and inky, Kovacic unfolded a Puccini we had never heard. What he could do with Tosca and its forgotten melodies.
And then came the real annunciation, Elgar's Introduction. Elgar suffers from too much fame. Too great a scope from empire building to gushy church services to the warm homely fireside chat. All of it is genuine but is there a real Elgar, in spite of the cello concerto? Kovacic found one. A genuine, male aunt, Elgar disturbs. He had his grand secrets, like Brahms, of inconsolable sorrows. Kovacic and this resurrected orchestra, did nothing to elucidate the secrets. They did better, with playing and understanding from the conductor, they sent this being fluttering and soaring up into spaces uninhabited, like birds. And Elgar was gone in pure music.
