It ends with a tango
Amal Choucri Catta skips around the new season's musical programme
Every year, and for the past 15 years, the end of August brings with it a mood of anticipation, at least for Cairo's concert going audiences. At times there is an almost palpable sense of nostalgia for good music, for stages and spotlights in air- conditioned halls. Sixty nights in open-air theatres, with hot summer winds often blowing the musical scores away, or scorching temperatures diminishing our enjoyment, are quite enough. And though summer may not be over yet its end coincides with the announcement of the new season for theatre, song and music which is already on our doorstep.
On 1 September the main hall of Cairo's Opera House will host the 15th session of the Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre, an event that by now traditionally marks the opening of the cultural season. The different shows will be taking place at the opera's venues and at other theatres in the public sector.
Aida, Verdi's four act opera, has an early start this year. Planned for 18 September and scheduled for five performances it will be a harbinger of things to come. Symphony concerts will, as usual, be taking place every Saturday, while gala concerts and evenings of Arabic music have been planned at the rate of two-to-three concerts a month.
Towards the end of September, though, the mood will change: the brief autumn will bring with it ballerinas and dancers rushing around backstage, preparing for two performances by the Stuttgart Ballet Company, scheduled for 2 and 3 October. The Stuttgart Ballet Company has already graced Cairo Opera House's Main Stage, 14 years ago in November 1989 with the fabulous Marcia Haydee performing the title role in The Taming of the Shrew, John Cranko's ballet in two acts and ten scenes based on Shakespeare's play and with Kurt-Heinz Stolze's adaptation of Domenico Scarlatti's music. This time, however, Katarina's pranks are not on offer, rather a medley of lovely dances -- a pas-de-deux, a grande fugue and other dances to the music of different composers among whom Bach and Beethoven are the best known.
The Stuttgart Ballet Company is one of the world's finest. Funded by John Cranko it enjoys an enviable international reputation. The two performances are an important event taking place in the framework of the German Cultural Festival in Egypt for the year 2003, marking the inauguration of the German University.
Swans sway every season at Cairo's opera and they will be swaying once more from 18 to 23 October, when the Main Hall hosts six ballet, opera and concert performances by the Russian Bashkirskaya Company, presenting three performances of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet, two opera performances yet to be announced and culminating on 23 October in a gala concert with Cairo Opera's orchestra, ballet and choir.
November will begin with performances by Walid Aouni's modern dance theatre company, presenting Between Dusk and Dawn, with music by Nader Abbassi, and Sheherazade, with music by Rimsky- Korsakov, with Cairo's Opera Orchestra conducted by Abbassi himself.
Sheherazade has already been performed on the opera's stages and, recently, in Germany, were it met with great success. Audiences loved Korsakov and Nasir Shamma's music, the extraordinary colours and the excellent choreography. Dance continues later in the same month when the Main Hall hosts three performances of one-act ballets choreographed by Abdel-Moneim Kamel and performed by the Opera Ballet Company and Orchestra. Kamel will be choosing three ballets from his vast repertoire -- hopefully the recent Hamlet and the Polovtsian Dances will be among the lucky three.
The first ten days of December have been reserved for the 13th Festival of Arabic Music, while Christmas Carols will be sung in the framework of different concerts between 17 and 20 December, and Tchaikovsky's two-act Nutcracker ballet will be returning to the Main Hall for six nights at the end of the month. And as the year comes to a close the advent of 2004 will be celebrated by the yearly concert of Strauss's music, on 31 December performed, as always, by Cairo Symphony Orchestra.
Lyrical and dance performances seem to be taking a holiday during the first half of January only to reappear from 23 to 28 January when the opera presents six performances of Donizetti's lovely two-act opera L'elisir d'amore.
With the return of February audiences will welcome what must now seem like an old friend -- Zorba, Mikis Theodorakis's extraordinary ballet, choreographed by Lorca Massine, with the A Capella choir, the Cairo Opera Orchestra and a beautiful solo sung by mezzo-soprano Hanan El- Guindi. With Hani Hassan in the title role and Giorgio Croci at the head of the orchestra the ballet has become a hit with local audiences and looks once more set to become the event of the month, gracing the Main Hall for six performances from 12 to 18 February, the rest of the month being reserved for symphonic and Arabic music. At least for the time being -- last minute changes do occur as the months go by and February may yet be full of surprises.
March promises audiences a number of rewarding performances, with two evenings of Midsummer Night's Dream and one of Puccini's Il Trittico, two opera-ballets presented in the framework of the Italian Festival in Egypt, from 3 to 5 March. Furthermore, Cairo Opera's lyrical department is promising a remake of Verdi's four-act opera Il Trovatore, scheduled for six nights, from 25 to 30 March. This opera was staged by the Cairo Opera company 14 years ago, under the direction of Kuzman Popov before disappearing from the repertoire. It is a remarkably sombre drama, with beautiful arias and the celebrated Anvil choir.
April brings a variety of performances, starting with the Geneva Ballet Company coming in for two nights from Switzerland, on 1 and 2 April, and followed on 5 April by a gala concert featuring the Budapest Symphony Orchestra MAV, flown in from Hungary. On 7 April Cairo Opera Dance Theatre will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of its foundation under director Walid Aouni, and the month will close with two lovely ballets: Gayaneh by Khatchaturian and Bizet's Carmen, scheduled for six nights, from 22 to 29 April and presented by Cairo Ballet Company. Gayaneh is in four acts, including the Saber dance, always a crowd pleaser; Carmen is a three-act drama so the company will be presenting only excerpts from the two.
May sees the Festival of Modern Dance Theatre, directed by Walid Aouni, which this year will showcase the work of French companies on 4 and 5 May. Two new productions of one act operas, directed by Jehane Morsi -- Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana -- are scheduled from 16 to 21 May. The month also sees Cairo Ballet Company presenting Maurice Ravel's Bolero, choreographed by Maurice Bejart, and Carl Orff's Carmina Burana choreographed by Abdel-Moneim Kamel beginning 29 May.
Though the last of the season, June is a month full of surprises, with four repeat- performances of Mozart's two-act opera The Magic Flute, from 11 to 15 June, and Bela Bartok's one-act opera Bluebeard's Castle, presented in collaboration with the Cultural Office of the Hungarian Embassy, scheduled for 22 and 23 June. This opera has already featured in the Main Hall on the occasion of the Hungarian Millennium in September 2000, with great success. The season at the Main Hall will close with a piano recital by Mushira Issa and a gala concert of the Cairo Opera Orchestra, with Omar Khairat at the piano.
With 16 dances and ballets, eight operas and around 80 musical performances the 2003-2004 season at Cairo Opera House -- and this is only on the main stage -- is relatively varied. The opera will also host a number of local and foreign soloists in the Small Hall and the Gomhoureya theatre. The Vienna Soloists, the Neapolitan Ensemble, the Japanese Quartet for Wind Instruments, and Germany's Volkwang Tanzstudio are among the many groups coming from different parts of the world, as well as local talents such as flautist Inas Abdel-Dayem, harpist Manal Mohieddin and the young pianist Wael Farouk. The Rossini festival of last season will also be reprieved at the Gomhoureya next March, most probably without any changes, which many of the performances badly need. Mohamed Abul-Kheir's staging and direction was inadequate, as was the scenography, while some performers seemed to be crying out for additional voice and singing lessons: echnique, diction and movements on stage were often disastrous. On the other hand, the Cairo Opera Orchestra, under the baton of Nader Abbassi, is rapidly becoming an important asset. And there is even a concert of tango music scheduled for 19 March at the Gomhoureya.
