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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Too much water
By David Blake
Oriental takht, Cairo Opera House open air, 20 July
A thoroughly wet takht. The weather was merciless and there was not a dry moment as the humidity continued to fall from heaven and everyone stewed. The moon had gone, taking the night off to find a dry spot in the desert and we, the audience, were bereft of all support except for the healing powers and protective armour of music.
Music is not a lump of real estate or a 25-storied cement megalith about to destroy the downtown skyline. It is something stronger, a nourishing illusion. We could flop about on the supports offered by the Opera House, enjoy ourselves as if we were swaying gently in the cool green depths of the Sargasso Sea. Not a bad place to be on such a night. The songs offered by the Oriental takht sailed coolly over our heads.
The opening number was a piece for orchestra, Longa Riyad by Riyad El-Sunbati. Sunbati it was who provided Umm Kulthoum with a number of her finest songs, one of which would end this concert. The music itself sounded rather cheery, unlike the Umm Kulthoum songs, which have a strong emotional directness. Even the first song, Al-Bahr Nayim by Zakariya Ahmed lacked the usual Orientalist -type angst. It, too, was cheery, but with its heavy, deep beats and percussive rhythm it maintained a muffled sense of mystery -- blue music suggesting the coming of night. Maybe because of the heavy atmosphere the audience, which knows all these songs by heart made no effort to join in.
Then Samah Ismail began El-Sunbati's Li'bat Al-Ayyam .There is something very mermaid about Samah Ismail. She has a very resonant voice and when necessary can produce great force. Her phrases sweep up to the highest part of the voice with alluring ease and loudness, always in tune -- no shrieks, merely the notes and words as written. The song sounds unhappy, a voice exposed and desolate. As with mostly all the singers in the takht tonight, it is forthright and gives the impression of being well-trained. Nothing careless, it is all power.
Then a lady in black, Fatma El-Ganaini, began her song, Fakrak by Ahmed Sidqi. Immediately the house sits up though they don't join this singer, who doesn't need any encouragement. Both tone and words flash out clear and true. She has a perfect diction and a wonderful Kulthoum-like echo to her middle voice. She even blows away the humidity and the voice sails over the top of the Open Air Theatre to the freedom beyond. If a night wind should come the effect will be grand and heroic because her tone is dazzlingly bright.
Something very mermaid
Her second song had low conversational consonants rising to climaxes of sheer voice -- a tone that never varies. One day, when she learns to vary it, the Cairo theatre can look out, for she will be a performer with the big sound so searched for.
When the orchestra came to their places it was cooler. The audience revelled in their own listening life. The damp midnight blanket seemed to have moved away and the takht took on a new freedom. Up to this point the women had stood up to the bain Turc better than the men. They seemed to open out to the warm enveloping air better than their opposite sex and their voices lost none of their brightness.
After the break came the orchestra, with a solo oud that broke the humidity barrier. The play was romantic, very virtuoso and the instrument sang songs, gave intimate dramatic dialogues and displays of the oud's variety of string tones. Then it fell in with the orchestra and the qanun and together they did a long and interesting little symphony far from the classic circuit.
The next item was a singer -- a man whose style seemed not to fit what had gone before. Mahmoud Abdel-Hamid had a pleasant, confidential manner -- his singing was a whisper. So confidential it barely registered in the theatre at all. Two songs of Farid El-Atrash -- himself a master of the confidential aside -- were given this treatment. It seemed a fashionable ghost from the great lover days of Abdel-Wahab and El-Atrash. This singer finally erased himself down to a whisper, which was a pity because in a few phrases he showed he had a powerful bright voice.
The other male, Mustafa Ahmed, began intimately then broke forth into a clear full voice with plenty of colour. He looked more mature than he sounded. There was an Abdel-Wahab song, Madnak , then a song by Mohamed El-Mougi, Ya Helw Sabbah. The men at last conquered the damp blanket, and sang forth heroically.
The Oriental takht had opened to a bad outbreak of planetary warming which nearly wreaked the concert but with assistance from the girls the concert grew to an enjoyable finish. At times the going was heavy but regardless of everything the spirit won through. It ended with something else. A frail girl in a romantic black dress, May Farouk came out, sang a song, Al-Atlal. It is so famous it is part of the Nile. And what of the girl herself, who stepped in for super-diva Umm Kulthoum in everyone's memory? She really did a great job, not of wearisome reproduction -- she did not stick close. Ignoring all the signs and warnings she was probably given, she made no effort to get close to the goddess who could sink people with a tone.
May kept her distance and remained unfazed. She sang it just nice and clean, ignoring the air stream above. Simple, very straight stuff which lasts forever.
