Canals and rivers
Amal Choucri Catta is waterborne
L'Orchestra Sinfonica del Friuli Venezia Giulia: Antonio Vivaldi, Concertos and The Four Seasons; Cairo Opera House, Main Hall, 11 December, 8pm
They had arrived from Venice for one concert at Cairo Opera's Main Hall, sixteen musicians in all -- 15 strings, including a solo violin, and a harpsichord -- part of the Orchestra Sinfonica del Friuli Venezia Giula, founded in July 2000, and in its entirety numbering some 60 instrumentalists. Their concert in Cairo being entirely dedicated to Antonio Vivaldi, strings were all they required, and strings they gave us: four first violins, four second violins, three violas, two cellos and one double bass, all musicians of talent and with an extraordinary soloist, Lucio Degani, a virtuoso as in love with his violin as with his music.
The concert took place in front of the closed curtain, which did little to help the acoustics, and began with three concertos: A-major, RV 158, followed by D-major, RV 208, dubbed "Greosso Mogul", with Lucio Degani as soloist, and finally the Concerto in A-minor for two violins, strings and harpsichord, with soloists Degani and Duccio Ceccanti. And they gave us a Vivaldi that Vivaldi would himself have recognised -- lively, full of variety, with lots of sweet melodies as well as fireworks, the displays of virtuosity punctuated by moments of extreme tenderness.
Vivaldi, after all, was never really interested in philosophical questions. He was an entertainer, that was the task he set himself and that is what he achieved.
A virtuoso himself, Venice had nicknamed Vivaldi "the red priest", for he had inherited his father's red hair. Born in Venice on 4 March, 1678, while the city was shaken by an earthquake, he was destined to become one of the stranger fish occupying the musical waters. Under the guidance of his father, a professional violinist and composer, he became a child prodigy, playing the violin to the acclaim of Venice's adoring tourist crowds. When he was 25 he took his first job teaching music at a girl's school for orphans and paupers, the "Ospedale della Pieta". He was also ordained, though it seems he trained as a priest mainly so he could devote himself to his music. Whatever, he taught on and off at the Ospedale for 15 years, until his career took him elsewhere. His position at the Ospedale required him to teach the young girls to play music, and to write two concertos every month for them to perform. Their concerts eventually became highlights of the busy Venetian social calendar, frequented by the local aristocracy and foreign visitors alike. Vivaldi's concertos became a kind of event, contemporary tourist blockbusters, and he seems to have produced 500 of them in total, 230 for solo-violin. He was, however, doing his best to write opera and when his first, Ottone in Villa, was staged, he became manager of the San Angelo Opera, tone of the mainstays of the Venetian social scene. Documentary evidence suggest he wrote over 40 operas and in the process acquired vast amounts of money. But Vivaldi was also a spendthrift, and when the fickle, fashion-conscious audiences began to lose interest in his compositions, turning instead to younger composers, he found himself stranded. In 1740, at the age of 62, he found himself in Vienna, penniless. He died on 28 July, 1741, receiving a pauper's burial in an unmarked grave.
He and his music remained forgotten for nearly 200 years until, in 1926, a musicologist was called into a monastery in Piedmont to help them sell some old manuscripts. Among the hoard where 97 folios of Vivaldi's works, including 100 concertos, 12 operas, 29 cantatas and oratorios. Still more of his music was to come to light later, and new discoveries are still being made. The Vivaldi phenomena, though, only really took off in 1960, since which date he has become a fixture of the international repertoire with at least one piece, the Four Seasons, becoming that rare thing, a genuinely popular classic.
Predictably, it was the Seasons that made up the second part of Friuli Venezia's concert and the orchestra's interpretation was near perfect, aided and abetted by the violin solo's beautiful evocation of the sleeping shepherd in the second movement of spring. Lucio Degani deserved his endless cheers, and responded with an encore, Paganini's Theme and variations on the fourth string.
Cairo Opera Company with Caroline Dumas, Cairo Opera Orchestra, cond. Ernst Schelle: French Opera Gala, Cairo Opera House, Main Hall, 12 December, 8pm
They were all there, Pearl Fishers, Thais, Faust, Lakme, all present and correct and bidding farewell to Caroline Dumas, their faithful promoter who for a decade has been giving advanced courses in singing to sopranos Iman Moustafa, Mona Rafla, Amira Selim and to tenor George Wanis and bass-baritone Reda El-Wakil among others, mainly at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, though at regular intervals in Cairo where she coached young talents and granted scholarships.
Her agreement with the Cairo Opera House having come to a close, Caroline Dumas gave a farewell Gala Concert, last Thursday, with some of her students and the Cairo Opera Orchestra conducted by the German Ernst Schelle.
Beginning with the orchestral Prelude to Bizet's Carmen, the programme progressed to include mezzo-soprano Hanan El-Guindi's Seguedille and Habanera, performances that must surely qualify her for a chance to sing Carmen at the Cairo Opera some day. Tamer Tewfik was fine in La fleur que tu m'avais jetée, while soprano Iman Moustafa gave us a splendid Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante. Then came the turn of Amira Selim and Lakme, the three-act opera by Leo Delibes set in India in the mid 19th century. An Englishman is captivated by Lakme, daughter of a Brahmin priest who swears to kill the man who has violated his holy temple. In order to identify the intruder the priest forces his daughter to sing at the bazaar. She faints when the Englishman appears, revealing her love, and her father stabs him. Lakme tends him in her hut in the forest but in the end he chooses to leave her and remain faithful to his regiment. She obliges him in his choice by poisoning herself.
The opera has a delicious score: all its arias are lovely, with The Aria of the Bells requiring extreme virtuosity, a brilliant coloratura, beautiful timbre and superlative technique. Amira Selim handled it with aplomb. Here is one young lady who knows where she wants to go and how to get there. The vibrant orchestral rhapsody Espania, by Emmanuel Chabrier, closed the first part of the concert.
L'apprenti sorcier, a fascinating symphonic poem by Paul Dukas, based on a poem by Goethe which is in turn based on one of Lucian's dialogues, opened the second half of the concert. The apprentice, in his master's absence, tries one of his spells and, to his consternation, cannot countermand it: the Cairo Opera Orchestra seamlessly negotiated the rhythms and melodies, with the conductor effectively banishing Fantasia's Mickey Mouse associations with the piece.
Then came Massenet's Thais, with Iman Moustafa in good form, her voice bright and clear. Bizet returned with the Pearl Fishers, with Mona Rafla giving a nostalgic version of Comme autrefois and Mustafa Mohamed expansive and warm in L'orage s'est calmé. And then came Dumas herself for the Aria of the Jewels from Gounod's Faust: the ease, professionalism and interpretive brilliance were spell- binding.
Reda El-Wakil followed with a solemn Veau d'or, to be joined by Tamer Tewfik and Caroline Dumas for Faust's Trio Final. The end came with Hector Berlioz's Damnation de Faust and the Rakoszi March. It was a marvellous evening. Caroline Dumas had done an excellent job.
