18 - 24 October 2001
Issue No.556
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 18 - 24 October 2001 Issue No.556 |
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Not waving but drowning
By David Blake
Cairo Symphony Orchestra, conductor Ahmed El-Saedi; piano Moushira Issa; dancer Verginia Herrero; conductor José Ferreira-Lobo; Cairo Opera House Main Hall, 13 October
Moushira Issa -- she the invincible -- gave part of tonight's concert, playing Beethoven's piano concerto No 1. Moushira Issa is like Michaelangelo. Sometimes she is not available. She comes -- arrives -- but she is not there.
Moushira Issa
She is an instinctive player. The piano, inclining as it does, in spite of its overwhelming superiority as an instrument, tends to settle into known and loved states of existence. Some intuitive players can disappoint. They can even be rude. Their manoeuverability permits of all sorts of behaviour. They can be uncomfortable. One must watch out. Yet if they can suddenly encapsulate themselves into their true presences they will bequeath memories well worth having, as Issa did one matinee with Chopin two years go.
So there she is. One always writes about her in the same way. She is a kind of field marshall. Her battle plan never varies, though if the presence arrives she is fated to win.
This Beethoven did not sound young but it was fresh and frolicsome -- aspects which Issa very much displayed. She was neither boyish nor girlish, more aunt-like, though a decidedly skittish aunt setting out on a summer picnic to enjoy herself.
The vernal feelings here were light and bright as crystal, yet it had not the slightest sophistication. The rills and trills had never heard of Liszt. Issa was meticulous in showing joy, release in nature, but no romanticism. Not a trace of weldtsmerch. If it resembled anything it resembled a Schubert song, and Issa kept beautifully in the sunlight. She produced a sort of pianistic hymn to the dawn, ageless, yet reserved enough for Schubert in his Die Forella. Every possible technical effect was used by Beethoven for each of the melodies. The composer certainly gives the player something to play with, and as usual, Issa enjoyed herself immensely. She was having a great time. Yet in spite of the pianist's wit and love of a pun, it came all too soon to a finish, crackling and full of sparkle.
José Ferreira-Lobo is a gentle maestro and seems often to lag behind the pace set by the player. From Issa's pearls and plants, glossy but often close to the nursery, we went to no man's land.
Whatever the proliferation of her moods, Spain is seldom tranquil, but the apparently tranquil style appeals to Lobo. This presented problems in the de Falla piece, to which was set a one- woman ballet danced by Verginia Herrero. This piece once had settings by Picasso and was danced in a very different manner by Diaghilev's troupe. The alert Cairo Symphony Orchestra gave a fine account of the Cubist-like abrupt edges of the score.
Herrero is a tall, handsome lady, and there was more than a little of the eurythmic about her dancing. Long lunges, swoops, and plenty of arm waving. Nothing Spanish.
In the original there were matadors. What we had instead, from Herrero, was waving. She did little else but wave. The effect was similar to a dance class being led through a waltz to the Blue Danube.
The story of the ballet is of a woman obsessed by a long dead love that will give her no peace. She eventually exorcises him, though you would have no idea in this production.
Verginia Herrero's costumes were no help. One would have thought that she could at least have made a striking first entry in something suggesting the Argentine. A sombrero might have intimated some of the grandeur the music possessed. But no. She waved.
The next piece was the result of a collaboration between Soutillo and Juan Vert -- a beautiful thing, La Leyenda Del Beso. It has a lofty, aristocratic sensuality that manages to be both erotic and chilly, much like the mood of some flamenco, full of loss and gain.
Herrero, in an even dowdier costume, did her best with the music. Shame about the dress. She was quite out of place in the redoubtable chords of all this Spanish grandeur.
So this disturbing, strange concert drew to an end. It had started with Ramz Sabri's Traditional Echoes: nostalgia really. There was something inexplicable about it all. Issa was happy as always. Her Beethoven fizzed. De Falla was impressive. And then there was Herrero. What she really needed was a black matador coat designed by Balenciaga.
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