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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 August 2000 Issue No. 496 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 August 2000 Issue No. 496
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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 Something about a dream
By David Blake
Citadel Festival, Eastern Takht, conductor Farouq El-Babili, Cairo Opera House, Open-air Theatre, 17 August
Unmusical people always have the same gripe. They always sing the same songs runs the usual complaint. Always the same old songs.
But it is not the songs that grow old, it is the people who listen to them. Eras pass over into history, and so do songs. The people who listen to them and love them are the ones who grow old but songs are like money. The passing years merely increases their power to arouse emotion.
It is not just here that people listen, bewitched, to old songs. Everyone everywhere does. Songs are like war and peace, youth and age. When we hear some songs, it is like taking off reading glasses. A miracle, the sight suddenly clears. The listener has become the boy or girl who first heard it all those years ago.
This concert began with the entrance of a tiny person who looked about ten years old, in a flaming red dress, May Yusri by name. She took her place, full of purpose, alongside the conductor. The introductory music to her song began and finished, expectations ran high: what sort of a sound would emerge from the minute, neat frame? Huge, voice piercingly clear but beautifully produced. It shot up into the night air, a vocal rocket -- Madam Butterfly to look at, Aida-dramatic to hear. She made a really large impression even when she was not singing, merely by standing there full of dignity, with a child's concentration on the coming phrase. She negotiates very difficult intervals with extreme assurance. A strange, intriguing phenomenon who left the theatre to loud acclaim.
What fate awaits this voice? Cairo has an unending variety of voices that circulate outside the classic operatic magic circle. So near and yet so far. The next singer, young but not as extremely so as the preceding flame, was different -- tall, black-robed, gentle-mannered, with a very beautiful, veiled, hooded voice, what they once called romantic. She is Rehab Metawi'. Her first song was straightforward, popular in type. But the sound of the voice was unique. Like Faiza Ahmed, she immediately created an atmosphere of mystery and suspense. This was continued through all her songs. The voice soared through the spaces of the open air making a sensuous, ovoid sound, polished and assured.
Rehab warmed to her performance. It is always amazing to hear these individual voices so full of personality and wondering why so few ever make their way to the Opera House, which sorely needs them. Her hair, neither Eton crop nor Streisand witch-grooming, and her arched and impressive torso made her look as though she belonged in a Puccini opera. These singers have great gifts, they understand the full use of the classical parlando. Confidential and sotto voce she voices a familiar lament: "Entre nous, habibi, you're a bit of a failure. Why not try changing your job so we can stick together and get on with a richer life?"
Hey ho, down the river we go to the next section of the concert -- Ibrahim El-Hifnawi who made a point of giving some of the most personal songs of Abdel-Halim Hafez. For Egypt Halim is the most exalted mourner of all. A voice of total sorcery, the Klingsor of song, he gently, with svelte perfection, uncovers the most tenderly cherished secrets of the human heart. Gershwin's Swanee, Billie Holiday and her "willow willow weep for me," Piaf shouting about her blasted dreams of joy, and Sinatra in his lonely bar-room smoke fumes seeing the bright days of the past -- Halim equals them all. His home fires stopped burning though all their hearts were yearning.
The boys never came home again, the fires went out and only black cinders remained.
El-Hifnawi's beautiful and expressive voice sifted over the songs of Halim and Abdel-Wahab, a moonlit despair which stopped short of absolute misery, ending instead in the elegiac resignation which music, above all the other arts, can express, particularly in a tone of voice. But there must be a song.
Citadel Festival, Cairo Festival Orchestra, conductor Sherif Mohieddin, Cairo Opera House, Open-air Theatre, 18 August
Whoever told them America, or anyone else's musicals, should sound like this? The sheer decibles of sound could crack a building. Rogers and Hammerstein and the Kern Brothers were extremely fastidious musicians. To hear their music belted out like this would have sent them into shock. It was sadistic. That the music is so famous is no reason for such roller-coaster treatment. Everyone knows these tunes, so why not take care of them?
The Cairo Festival Orchestra played well, the singers were heroic, never faltering in their efforts to keep their vocal ends up. It must have been Sherif Mohieddin's fault -- didn't he care? He who is so adept at Handel and Mozart seemed to have enjoyed unleashing the furies. It is as awful to go vulgarly over the top with Hammerstein as it is with Brahms. All the singers showed care and their own sense of style, a style utterly lacking in the noisy din they were forced to struggle against. And it is to their credit that they succeeded in giving a proper air of authority to an otherwise unworthy musical accompaniment.
The opening overture, Williams' "ET," was as loud and out of style as a bad performance of the opening of 2001. It went on to "The Sound of Music." Fortunately Jaqueline Rafik (soprano) was in place to sing it. She always starts this song as though she's into "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," but develops her full classical treatment of the climax with the right vibrato. It is the full Drury Lane treatment, and she won an ovation from an otherwise cool audience. After Leonard Bernstein's "Tonight" came Loewe's "I could have danced all Night," which has become the party piece of Amira Selim. She certainly knows how to put it across -- gestures, bodily movements and the voice.
Amira Selim is becoming a case. She began with a slight but high voice, perfect scale and very expressive. She's a real musician. The voice remains very light. One thought of her as the perfect Sophie of Der Rosenkavalier. And then things began to change with Amira Selim. The voice begins to move, a physical change takes place and darkens the high soprano canary birds who turn into eagles. Her whole voice has changed its quality. What was once meagre has become fulsome. She produces deep tones. Everything about the voice is in process of moving. These days she has become a proper operatic soprano with sweeping sounds full of expression.
The next surprise was the baritone Elhami Amin, singing "Stars" of Schoenberg. He is a big, broad-voiced baritone with plenty of power. It is not inky dark but goes very high -- a high baritone is rare and useful in all opera houses. All through his programme he sang with great force.
In the next piece came a duet with soprano Rafik and the tenor Tamer Tawfiq. He is a regular opera house voice, not tall but he sings tall. He's a much appreciated tenor for Aida, when he has given a thrilling impersonation of the messenger from the first act of the opera. It is a small star role which he fills out with great power. He is the bringer of bad news for the Egyptian empire. They are up in arms and he makes the most of a tiny part.
Nowadays his voice is becoming heroic. He can make a good big noise, as becomes a tenor. He sings beautifully and can produce dramatic effects when the music demands it. He has become a rare type, a tenore spinto. One thinks of him at the opera as the Caravadossi of Tosca. The concert went on through the popular bits of The Phantom of the Opera.
There was the terrific duet with Selim and Tawfiq, and then he sang O Sole Mio. It was no way lyric, full of amore or southern starlight, but more a call to battle. He cannot resist using the power and resonance of his voice, which can thrill.
Then came the finale with the set piece from The Phantom of the Opera which sends Amira up into stratospheric heights. The entire cast was fully equal to every stress laid upon them. These four singers all showed that whatever straights the opera faces they are not vocal ones. These young singers have it in their voices and personal appeal to fill the great roles. It is up to the opera to help mould their careers into the useful and exciting things they are capable of doing.
This festival shows the talent is there.
