14 - 20 June 2001
Issue No.538
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 14 - 20 June 2001 Issue No.538 |
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A late supper
David Blake is vibrant at the opera
Cairo Symphony Orchestra; solo violin Hassan Sharara; conductor Patricio Aizaga; Main Hall: Cairo Opera House, 9 June
Aroma Mexicana is one of the great fragrances, along with lion, Chanel and cuire de Russie. But Mexico has something, though, the others lack -- blood stains the beautiful moonlight, and there are the sounds of love and broken hearts. Its uniqueness as food for the soul is undeniable.
Patricio Aizaga from Ecuador came surrounded by the Mexican atmosphere; Hassan Sharara of Cairo added to the concert his own tender nonchalance; and the night was one of tones tender or else tones gallant and savage, but always tones irresistible.
The evening began with a spoken word: Sharara/Tchaikovsky would open the concert, not the orchestral work by the Mexican Jose Pablo Moncayo as stated in the programme. A good thing too: since the rest of the programme was Latin American, this would have placed Tchaikovsky and Sharara at the centre of a high powered chili con carne.
The Tchaikovsky Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, Op 35 is a party piece for celebrated players. As with all Tchaikovsky it is tough, and can stand up to almost anything a travel-bruised star player can give to it. The concerto is a high flowering perennial which has no seasonal weakness and, as with all Tchaikovsky, boasts a long long breath and the composer's unfailing sense of theatre.
The Dream, Henri Rousseau
This concerto has a shallow stretch where the violinist must, as well as a virtuoso, be a stern parental figure who says "no, not again, no more pink floral stuff." In spite of all the praise it has received, did Tchaikovsky really like the violin? He was in a hurry when he wrote the mighty piano concertos, though this never showed. But so eager was he to please in this concerto he ends up with two different endings -- a dash up to the floral finish twice over.
This was a lucky performance. The conductor, Patricio Aizaga, is an incandescent spark. His Latin vitality and love of line keeps his electricity under control -- no burst fuses for Aizaga but dazzle power and a positively electronic quantum speed and tempo. He produced huge walls of light and sound without once being heavy or repetitive. Just good old shock and bomb blast but no apparent damage. He lifted Tchaikovsky up from the party and laid him out on dry land.
The orchestral components of Tchaikovsky were made plain. Aizaga's ways and means meant joy to the Cairo Symphony. They played with their hair pieces bouncing or else the real stuff standing stiffly on end. Vibrant nights make long amorous memories -- and this night of June was one.
Aizaga may be a jet but Sharara has his own speed and vibrancy to give and he gave it all he had. Nothing would force this player off his landing strip. Sharara is a heavy-weight, full of stored notes and effects to be pulled out as well as the treacles and flowers when demanded. He met all challenges. He always does. He is large, lofty and laid back -- then suddenly a depth charge enters the spirit of the music, or coloratura flashes.
Aizaga seems to conduct through his knees. Sharara goes through the heart.
The mid-end of this work offers the lot. It helps if the demon fiddler is like Paganini. And so Sharara was. This bulky man was fleet of foot, and torso, arms and head were all bent on the victorious last lap. He delivered all the sugar. But where was the cream? Sharara does not deliver cream. He keeps that for himself, to help the over-sized drive of his playing.
Part two of the concert was where the sparks flew. Aizaga was working with his own colours. No one can tell a Mexican about colour drama or how to achieve it. Honduras may be where Aizaga was born but his life and colours are Mexican and it was these colours that, with Jose Pablo Moncayo's Huapango, hit the Opera House like a triple tequila.
You get it full in the face -- the entire colour range of the Mexican fragrance. It is brassy, full of trombones, trumpets and horns. The orchestra was enlarged. It was a crowd, playing their arms and heads off in a free-for-all that might have sounded chaotic but did not. Loud, soft or brassy, but never noise. It had meaning -- a representation of muscles, bodies and that odour that has no other name but Mexico. Like Egypt's music we are given a course in history. Egypt plunges from Pharaoh to Mamluk to Pasha to Mohandessin -- Mexico goes from blood rituals to conquistadors' massacres to the 18th century, when the moon and broken hearts melded Mexican musical history, and then to the bloodied half moons of the life-and-death night clubs of Mexico City. So history is dissolved. This weird, wooshy music of Moncayo is the beautiful residual fall-out.
Alberto Ginastera's ballet music, Estancia, which followed comes from the Argentine but via Mexico. Cow people, tree people, real people, dead people and legendary people all stamp together to a dance -- the Malambo. This is a dance involving a number of jingles. It lasts as long as cigarette smoke, but neither Argentina nor tobacco can match Qui Viva Mehico as a late supper.
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