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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 May 2000 Issue No. 483 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 May 2000 Issue No. 483
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Big and beautiful
By David Blake
Verdi's Aida, Cairo Opera Company, Cairo Opera Chorus, Cairo Opera Orchestra, Cairo Opera Ballet; conductor Mustafa Nagui, chorus master Aldo Magnato, director Abdallah Saad, Cairo Opera House Main Hall, 16-19 May
Between 10-19 May, with two days' respite in the middle, the Cairo Opera mounted two of Verdi's operatic colossi -- Ballo in Maschera and Aida -- two of the most taxing operas in any repertoire. Even the big stalwart international companies feel their strain. Yet here and now, with only a two-day rest period between, they were produced and sung with great success.
The atmosphere was thick with the usual negativism. No one needs opera, it's alien, it's elitist. Better light stuff, belly dancing, something easy, quick and practical. The public, though, turned up providing spare but not sparse houses.
History has made Aida almost pop, which shows that a living audience for opera is growing, while Ballo, complex, darkly shadowed, ambidextrous, was given two different casts, both of whom provided the proper grand atmosphere. Quality counts.
Aida is back in town, everyone seemed to be grumbling. We've had enough of Aida, the saturation point has been reached. She's a curse that won't go away, self-generating like an oyster. Chuck her in the Nile and she'll swim back to Giza. And she won't burn, she's flame-proof like the Phoenix and better by far than the sphinx, that other professional ghost.
The trouble with Aida? She makes for a good opera in spite of everything. Together with her friend, Radames, she makes a pair of fools. Only the batty princess Amneris has a conscience.
Like Ballo, there were two casts to cope with the vocal burden. The first had Iman Mustafa (soprano) as Aida, Emil Ivanov (tenor) as Radames, Boika Vassileva (mezzo) as Amneris, Gaber El-Beltagui (baritone) as Aida's father, Amonasro, Ashraf Sweilam (bass) as Ramfis, villainous high priest possessed of manipulative genius. The Pharaoh was Abdel-Wahab El-Sayed.
This was a strong, almost international cast. Mustafa was made to act and throw herself into the centre of a plot her inaction has produced. She bashed around bullying Radames and her father. She had her high Cs and low Fs in place. Radames was a handsome foil. His acting was a knockout, and his voice as strong and dependable as his legs. Everything about him was stylish.
Amneris was a sensation -- in yards of clothes, and yards of penetrating, spectacular voice. She made off with as much sympathy as the audience could muster. Cairo audiences are not often warm yet the usually cool spectators heated up with this princess who burned up Thebes. Beltagui was sonorous as Aida's father, and Ashraf Sweilam had a triumph as the priest Ramfis -- tall, impassive and as dangerous as a Doberman Pincher.
photo: Sherif Sonbol
The second cast did as well as they had done with the Ballo in Maschera. Aida was brave and forthright (Paola Di Gregerio), likewise Walid Korayem as Radames, while Awatef El-Sharkawi repeated her generous and appealing Amneris -- a beautiful voice used nobly. She was trapped and tragic and sonorous as well. Nobody can miss the first act messenger Tamer Tewfiq. It's not a little role. He has momentous news to give the waiting royals. And the tenor did it from the cuff: Beware, Nubia's loose!
So another Aida, another year, and she's already sprouting up in Giza, a desert flower for autumn.
Really the star of the show was Abdallah Saad. His eyes seem to be on all the sparrows. As a producer his touch was to avoid and sidetrack the banalities that mire most productions. He went direct to Verdi, who always said Aida was no spectacle but a chamber opera, like a drama by Racine. What are the great up to behind closed doors? Plenty, says Abdallah Saad's production. It never stops, never turns into longeur as the hours pass -- each character is highlighted and sharpened up. Saad is what the Opera House needs most. He has an electric touch with drama. Aida speeded up like an old western movie.
Even the ballets were on the dot. Not a lot of well-behaved little dears from the Moscow Ballet School, but prancing athletic men doing primitive movements which had nothing to do with dance school routines.
Mustafa Nagui is often difficult to follow, loud soft, quick slow. Aida needs more than this. And he's inclined to enjoy swamp tactics. Where are the voices? But the whole thing kept moving as best it could, faced with Abdallah Saad's wash-and-polish production.
The spaces of the stage were remarkable. Abdallah Saad had perspectives that really suggested power and mystery. And throughout the colours of the clothes fitted the drama. It was an exciting night in ancient Memphis with weird, restrictive people moving about in shadows and gorgeous prison-like splendour. Not a place to go for a quiet weekend by the old Nile.
One must keep an eye on Abdallah Saad's progress through the Opera House. He is valuable and needs proper treatment.
Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra VII, soloist violin Heike Janicke, soloist violin and conductor Torsten Janicke, Cairo Opera House Main Hall, 20 May
Style is a word the meaning of which is almost extinct. It can't be taught, manipulated, copied, or even bought. But it is still about, and it reared its beautiful head like a Lippitzaner horse enjoying the sunshine.
It was Heike and Torsten Janicke giving their concert at the opera. They brought their own sun with them, and their style, a breathtaking display of sheer musicianship and a lot of other things besides -- speed, energy, light- and high-humour and complete control. They came on the platform, joined the orchestra, and dived into a watery flow of irresistible beauty. There are really no words for them -- and then there was style. It shone from them and overflowed into the orchestra, who played like fiends. Never did the Cairo Symphony ever sound like this before.
We had the honey songs of Handel, the long Vivaldi concerto of two violins, which they played together, the Mozart concertino for two violins -- all pristine, rippling with an energy principle come to the classics.
And then of all treasures, Schubert's Rondo for strings and violin. Heike Janicke seems to break all known sound barriers, bearing us into the realms of pure delight. Her treasure of a violin sang like Apollo's nightingale, but with touching dips of bronze. Music and player were one. Heike allowed her violin to show what seldom comes our way, that the violin metamorphoses often into a philosopher of music. In the dazzle of the playing was also the message -- push not the cup of happiness too far lest it break like the golden bowl into a thousand pieces of shadow. Anything, even Dvorak, was an anticlimax after the playing of Heike Janicke.
