Of joys and sorrows
Amal Choucri Catta relishes the sounds and lights
Orchestras of Ravenna and La Scala, with choirs of Ravenna and Santa Cecilia, conductor Ricardo Muti. Sound and Light Theatre, Pyramids, Monday 21 July
23 July Revolution Commemorative Concert; Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Cairo Opera House orchestras and choirs; Khufu Hall, International Conference Centre, Nasr City, Tuesday 22 July
Last week the news of a concert conducted by the celebrated Ricardo Muti, to take place at the Pyramids Sound and Light Theatre, enthralled Egyptian audiences. Little information was available on the event: it turned out the Cairo Opera House was not involved. The reason for this failure of publicity remains intractable. Ricardo Muti is, after all, one of the most important international conductors, a celebrated musician who belongs with Sir Simon Rattle, Zubin Mehta and Daniel Barenboim. Yet the absence of an Opera House busy with the 23 July Revolution commemorative concert, to take place at the International Conference Centre in Nasr City the next night, did not prevent this gigantic event from assuming the importance it deserved. With over four hundred instrumentalists and choir singers, the Sphinx and the Pyramids seemed the perfect backdrop of that immense stage.
And the theatre was overcrowded, the entire audience having been privately invited by the organisers; not one ticket was offered for sale. It took many audience members over two hours to park their cars and find their seats, and it took them as long to leave, while the concert itself did not last more than 70 minutes, presenting as it did an extremely disappointing programme -- one that was certainly not appropriate for the occasion. It started with the second act of Christoph Willibald Gluck's three-act opera, Orfeo ed Euridice -- the Vienna version, and ended with Hector Berlioz's Grande symphonie funeraire et triomphante in three movements. The importance of these two compositions cannot be denied, but they were far from suitable for such an open-air event, during which the wind blows away a large part of the sound.
The majority of the audience, though clapping profusely out of admiration for the excellent performance, nonetheless failed to enjoy the event as a whole. They must have expected a livelier, better thought out programme. After all, Italy boasts a huge number of composers and an even larger number of compositions; and the organisers would have been better advised to take the surroundings and the audience into account. Though he is undoubtedly an important Austrian influence, Christoph Willibald, Ritter von Gluck is quite unknown to the larger part of the public. And the same can be said of his Orfeo ed Euridice. He was born in Erasbach in 1714 and died in Vienna in 1787, having dedicated most of his life to the composition of operas, among which La clemenzza di Tito, Iphigenie en Aulide and Iphigenie en Tauride belong with the best- known examples of the genre.
His Orfeo, premiered in Vienna in 1762, was subsequently revised and translated, with the French version premiered in Paris in 1774. Its three acts are inspired by the classical legend of Greek mythology: Orfeo (often sung by a contralto) mourns the death of his wife Euridice. His grief is such that Zeus, father of the gods, permits him to journey to Hades, the Inferno, to reclaim her. If he is able to persuade Pluto through the power of his music, he may lead her back home, though he must not glance back at her until they have crossed the river Styx, separating the dead from the living. The Furies (sung by the choir) try to block Orfeo's path, and call on Cerberus, the triple-headed dog, to tear him to shreds. However, Orfeo charms them with his singing and continues on his way. He finds Euridice in the Elysian fields and begins to guide her back to earth. But she cannot understand her husband's strange behaviour, which he must not explain. Thinking he no longer loves her, she says she would rather die. In desperation, Orfeo turns to face her: she falls dead. But Amor, touched by the beauty of the lament Orfeo sings, restores Euridice to life. Of this sad tale, scenes one and two of the second act were chosen for the concert, with contralto Monica Paccelli as soloist, the choirs of Ravenna and Santa Cecilia and the orchestras of Ravenna and Milan's La Scala.
The performance was impressive on the whole: the contralto was magnificent, the choir and the orchestra equally marvelous. However the maestro did not seem very happy: when people began to applaud at the end of the first scene, he ordered them to stop with a nervous gesture. This may well have been the moment when he realised he had made the wrong choice of programme. Born in Naples on 28 July 1941, Ricardo Muti studied in Milan. He had his debut in Naples in 1970 and was music director of Milan's famous La Scala from 1986. He has conducted the most celebrated orchestras and was honoured and decorated in the United States, Russia and England as well as Italy. He is one of the finest opera conductors and has given some of the most powerful dramatic performances of Verdi, critics say. His conducting ability came through during the concert, though he did give the impression of being dissatisfied, leaving the stage hurriedly after the first part.
The choice of Berlioz's Grande symphonie funeraire et triomphante for the second part of the concert is beyond comprehension. Starting with a marche funeraire, followed by an oraison funebre, it culminates in a hymne d'apotheose. Most of the listeners disliked the symphony's monotony, its desolation, the sense of death and disaster it exudes, and, trying to see reason in such an unfortunate choice, some thought the proximity of the Pyramids and the tombs was reason enough for funerary excess; others, who had had negative musical experiences at the Pyramids, simply decided to leave. The occasion, which seemed to be the artistic and cultural twinning of the cities of Cairo and Ravenna, deserved a happier programme, they said. Most of the audience stayed on, however, though the maestro himself seemed to be in a hurry to leave the stage, in all probability deciding the audience did not deserve an encore.
National events always begin with national anthems, marches, patriotic tunes and hymns. And so began the concert commemorating the 51st anniversary of the 23 July Revolution. From the musical point of view, it was a fine event indeed. Originally planned in two parts, the concert was reduced to one, the second part having been cancelled some time prior to the date of the performance. It was therefore short and sweet, devoid of monotonous repetitions and boring extensions. The entire show, which took place at the Khufu Hall of Nasr City's International Conference Centre, lasted around eighty minutes, one composition swiftly following the next, with a seemingly military precision, with no time wasted on unnecessary introductions. Wisely preluding the performance, these had been beautifully taken care of by Hala Abu Alam, who gave a short speech to mark the occasion.
The Cairo Opera House did a perfect job organising this gigantic show, with the participation of members of the Cairo symphony and opera orchestras, the National Arabic Music Ensemble, the Abdel-Halim Noweira Orchestra, the Cairo Opera and A-Capella choirs and the children's choir. Taha Nagui, Guehad Dawoud and Hassan Sharara conducted the different sequences of the concert, respectively. About 700 performers remained constantly on stage, while soloists made swift appearances with appropriately brief songs. The stage had been transformed into a levelled structure, with an interesting backdrop of important monuments and hieroglyphs covering the walls. The entire show was beautifully directed by Jehane Morsi: there was discipline and order, but at the same time there was elegance and refinement. The different hymns and national anthems gave listeners a panoramic view on the revolution, with an extraordinary display of trumpets and a very colourful orchestration by Gamal Salama: the tunes followed each other seamlessly, sometimes without stopping for applause. The choir softly singing a refrain from Mohamed Abdel-Wahab's Al-Fann, eventually gave way to Tico-tico, Nesma Abdel-Aziz's signature tune, with the young lady percussionist at the marimba, and followed by Liberty, a tune brilliantly performed by Inas Abdel-Dayem on the flute.
Go, forget me is a new, passionate love song presented that night by Amira Ahmed, a lovely young lady with a remarkable voice. Recently, the Cairo Opera House has been giving young singers a chance to display their talent. And that night some of them did, while others were visibly plagued by stage-fright. They did their best, however, and there is no reason to think they will not shed their stage fright in due course. It was great to see Taha Nagui on stage again, conducting the first part of the concert. He had not conducted at the opera for a while and many thought he had abandoned his baton. Another maestro who made the night memorable was Guehad Dawoud: he came on stage with composer Omar Khairat, playing some of his tunes, including the song Latifa had contributed to Youssef Chahine's Sukout Hansawar (Silence..We're Shooting), Enta El-Masri. On stage, she improvised a little, though this wasn't always to the benefit of the material. Listeners tend to prefer the song to the improvisation. Composer Ammar El-Shereiy was also present, with the signature-tune of famous television serial Ra'fat El-Haggan as well as Ana 'Albi Dalili, a Laila Murad oldie sung in an Anwar Wagdi film half a century ago played with relish on the accordion by El-Shereiy while Hassan Sharara conducted the orchestra most eloquently.
Deserved applause also went to a beautiful young Amira Said and the song she sang delightfully with the children's choir, Allah aal Mustaqbal, an optimistic refrain filled with hope, sunny horizons and the happiness of children. In their quest for novelty and their endeavour to raise the standard of Arabic popular songs, the Cairo Opera's musical directors are promoting new compositions, some of which were presented at the concert by a number of young singers on their way to stardom. There were therefore several newcomers on stage, performing under the protective supervision of Gamal Salama. They were generally quite promising and seemed extremely dedicated to their careers as future singing stars. That night new tunes with an enchanting beat and some rather avant-garde musical conceptions were therefore heard. The show had been carefully prepared and as carefully executed. It was a show with a difference, filled with intelligent knowhow and sincere dedication -- and duly appreciated by one and all. It ended with a celebrated hymn, Misr Salama, Ya Salama, Ya Biladi, sung by all the choirs in unison, and seeing the entire house come down with roaring applause.
