Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | Operatic chaos

		24 - 30 October 2002 Issue No. 609 Home news	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

Operatic chaos
The lavish production of Aida at the pyramids may have been a crowd-pleaser, but participating artists were left in the lurch. Nevine El-Aref investigates

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photo: Sherif Sonbol
When the Cairo Opera House announced that this year Verdi's Aida would be mounted as a joint venture with a private company for the first time, some people questioned the choice of the Al-Mazalat Company for Art and Media Productions, not to mention the decision to work with the private sector.
Preparations for the event went according to plan, and all went smoothly until the final performance on 13 October. Foreign artists performing in the production went on strike two hours before the curtain was to go up, refusing to go on stage because the chairman of Al-Mazalat Company for Art and Media Productions, Ahmed Rabi'e, had not paid them. Egyptian understudies stepped into the leading roles, and the show went ahead.
"The producer of Aida disappeares without paying the money he owed to the Ministry of Culture and the actors," Egyptian newspapers reported the next day. A day later, however, Samir Farag, the head of the Cairo Opera House, denied those allegations.
So what is the real story?
"What some newspapers published was entirely false," Farouk Abdel-Salam, first undersecretary at the Ministry of Culture, told Al- Ahram Weekly. "The producer did not flee without paying [the Opera House and artists]. He is only facing liquidity problems." Abdel- Salam continued, saying that the Opera House had not lost money, but rather, it earned LE1.8 million. "We received LE600,000. The remainder will be paid in installments." Abdel-Salam said that the sequestration of the seating risers -- valued at LE4 million -- owned by Al-Mazalat was merely a precautionary measure in the event that Rabi'e is unable to pay the remainder of his debt.
Farag said that in the past, productions of Aida cost the Egyptian government approximately LE12 million each year they were mounted. When last year's production was canceled, the Opera House lost LE5 million that it had to pay in compensation to tour agents and foreign performers. "This year the private sector was responsible for Aida's promotional campaign and settling contracts with foreign artists."
Farag also said that the Opera House did not choose Al-Mazalat company haphazardly. Al- Mazalat, Farag said, has produced Aida in various countries, most recently in Qatar.
"Frankly speaking, the Opera House could not market Aida, because the Opera House is a cultural and artistic association that aims to produce work of arts. It is not a marketing organisation," Farag said. "There is no Opera House in the world that markets its performances," he added, saying that when France staged Aida at the Paris stadium to celebrate the centenary of the death of Giuseppe Verdi, the opera's composer, the event was marketed by one of France's largest marketing firms.
Farag described the recent production of Aida as "not bad" given that it was the first time that the production was mounted jointly with the private sector -- an approach that Farag said should be developed further.
Meanwhile, Egyptian performers in the production are angry because they still have not been paid even though they saved the day when it appeared that the final show might have to be canceled.
The baritone Reda El-Wakil, who played Ramfis, said that this was not the first time opera performers had been cheated by the private sector. In 1997, a private sector company produced Othello in Alexandria. Ticket sales were unimpressive and none of the members of the cast was paid.
Culture Minister Farouk Hosni has decided that no future productions of Aida will be staged until a study is made determining how to produce and market the event on a scale that the state can afford and without incurring losses.
Hosni said that although the Opera House did not lose any money on this year's event, that greater caution was in order in the future. "We will not allow such chaos to happen again," he said.

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