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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 9 -15 November 2000 Issue No.507 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 9 -15 November 2000 Issue No.507
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Books Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Palace and penthouse
By David Blake
Magda El-Rumi; Abdu Munthir, conductor; Main Hall: Cairo Opera House, (Opening night of the festival)1 November
That unquenchable lamp called music can lift the drooping spirit to high places. Happy time, this first of November and later, the 4th with Nassir Shama. We were in lamp-land certainly.
In the Main Hall, as the curtains parted on a packed house, the montage on stage was positively Wagnerian. On high were rows of chorus, and at lower level tiered ranks of the orchestra spread to the footlights, leaving a narrow ledge on which the performers might balance. It proved to be only one presence who walked this plank.
There is nothing like a full house at the opera. A dull, murmerous hum rose to a pandemonium of excitement as the hour of opening commenced. And finally the cause of all the drama stepped out on stage, warily walking the plank to the centre. A tiny, high voice, like a child prodigy's. welcomed everyone. Magda El-Rumi does not rely on her beauty, but her presence and is of one who means and knows her business. She is a no-nonsense mirage.
As the lights dulled and the orchestra began Little Miss Poppet disappeared and El-Rumi, diva of the Orient, began. The effect is quite shocking. Where does it all come from? Celine Dion has a high voice, others have power, but no one has Rumi's high voice, full and dramatic, middle voice, parlando and low voice, threatening, whispering and with the meaning of every word and syllable razor-like going through the house.
She has been taught -- has style and knows discipline as few opera singers today have these things. Actually she is a cuckoo in the operatic nest -- an opera star who prefers not to op. An increasing number are doing this, not just for financial reasons but to sustain their lives with full schedules.
Over a decade the Rumi voice has actually grown in power and striking ability. She never wobbles or croaks, or loses her way. She can scream, make a huge noise, but it is never raw or stale. She is a trooper -- a singer. Like the young Nilsson she knows how to sing lean.
As the evening goes on she and her voices give songs with all out attack -- patriotic, marshal and, finally, romantic. Her effect on the audience is puzzling.
The public know a lot of the tunes, applaud when she begins them and follow the dramatic scenario of her rhetoric. The songs are by established lyricist-poets like Nizar El-Qabbani and Salah Jahin and composers like Qazim El-Sahir and Kamal El-Tawil. The Qabbani-Saher Touq El-Yassmin (Jasmine Collar) and the Jahin-Tawil Muftaraq El-Tariq (Crossroads) went down very well. But the final response of the audience is cool.
Cairo audiences, except for their own beloved icons, are cool, famously so. The effect of Rumi's music is harsh and this daughter of Halim El-Rumi is not one to pull a song the wrong way. She is too honest. She never plays it all from her own point of view. For her, a song is a song, it belongs to someone else -- and she is the detached interpreter. So harsh is harsh -- and relentless is often the result. She will begin a song in a new voice altogether -- the fourth voice of opera singers, and the result is hardly recognisable Rumi. The tone, way up, is gorgeous -- Belliniesque, and she intones with full operatic power, descends a couple of octaves and ends in a low contralto turn which is really Verdian.
She is not Magda El-Rumi for nothing. She never solicits an audience, and she is a star, a true one, a thing which has to be encountered and accepted at its own value.
Now, Cairo, the Great Mother of the World, has no love of stars, being the ultimate prima donna. Can the coolness be due to mother's dislike of any phenomenon but her own? For example, Rumi's last song was sung to a piano accompaniment only, was quiet, romantic and full of sympathy. Yet mama's response was cooler still. Strange encounters.
Nassir Shama; Small Hall: Cairo Opera House, (4th night of festival), 4 November
This was Nassir Shama's best concert ever. Things have changed. He has created an eight-piece band with himself, the maestro, number 9. At the centre, Shama conducts the proceedings from his oud.
The new boys, the eight, are a tough looking bunch in black. But how they play. Shama is now one virtuouso in a group of nine. As the evening goes on in the accepted way, each was given a spot in which to display his talents.
The instruments are the classic ones of Egyptian music. There are no stars, not even Shama himself. They all shine together.
Shama in his solo concerts is sometimes extra-terrestrial -- not present. The music flows along without him while he could well have gone to Nepal. At other times he rides in on the beam and all is well with music and audience. Tonight was one of his on-beam nights, and for all those present will be a night to remember. At the end, which was hardly an end at all, the appreciative tumult rocked the staid little Small Hall to its foundations.
Whem Shama is on-beam his sense of humour begins to take over. It touches the extra flourish of his own playing, because he can send himself up as well as the audience. This night things with the eightsome got rough. They played so well the audience began to show that they were happy.
Arabic music often induces a feeling of prayer and no high spirits. This Arabic music suggested a good time was coming up for all. One player, the flautist, looked like something out of Young Frankenstein. Large and powerful, implacable face, completely frozen and statuesque, he was given a long star piece in which to release what turned out to be his sense of humour.
His flute went bonkers. Floral country dance, jazz, love songs ending as battles, the instrument has such power he set the outfit dancing. Shama got lost in the crush. The audience swayed, clapped, and some rose and began to dance in the Small Hall, which is strictly frowned upon. The night was made. Other bands had better look after their tone and tempo.
Shama's eight hurtled on into bird land where the men became birds in the trees. Cairo is getting a shake-up and it's about time.
It never stopped. The finish was a forced action on the part of the management. Laughing and dancing, this was one night the kids were right. Everyone was happy, and that is surely what the Arabic Music Festival should be about.
Related stories:
Songs of war and jasmine 9 - 15 July 1998
Hi, mama, you look great tonight 4 - 10 May 2000
Protoplasmic instrumentals 3 - 9 August 2000
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