An apotheosis confirmed
Amal Choucri Catta thrills to the dance
Stuttgarter Ballett and Cairo Opera Orchestra, cond. James Tuggle; Main Hall, Cairo Opera House, 2 &3 October 8pm
Last week's musical events came thick and fast. They started with Tomoko Kawada's brilliant violin recital at the Opera Small Hall, a fascinating programme of sonatas and fantasies by Dvorak, Beethoven, Saint-Saens, Ikuma, Sarasate and Massenet's moving meditation from his opera Thais. Accompanied on the piano by Maki Tanaka, Tomoko Kawada's performance was fabulous. She was showered with well-deserved ovations.
On 1 October, at the Gumhouriya Theatre, the Italian ballet company Kataklo: Indiscipline presented a spectacular acrobatic show. Seven athletes-come-dancers performing rhythmic gymnastics choreographed by Giulia Staccioli: the description hardly does justice to a unique performance that opened the series of events planned within the framework of the Egypt-Italy 2003-2004 festivities.
The third event was the arrival of the Stuttgart Ballet Company for two nights of marvellous dance at Cairo Opera's Main Hall, while the Austrian Cultural Forum was presenting, on the same night, a concert by the Vienna Instrumental Soloists, four piano, flute, trumpet, trombone and cymbal players, in a programme that included Mozart, Brahms and Cole Porter, alongside Blues on the Nile -- hommage a l'Egypte, a composition by Roland Batik for trombone and piano.
The week closed with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Taha Nagui, on 4 October. A lively version of Weber's overture to Euryanthe, followed by Haydn's sinfonia concertante for oboe, bassoon, violin and cello and Schubert's Third Symphony in D-major, closing with the loveliest of tunes, Franz von Supe's overture to the Light Cavalry. The Russian soloists -- Alexander Kolossov, oboe, Anatoly Kisselev, bassoon, Oleg Goloshenko, violin, and Egyptian Mohamed Saleh on the cello, were particularly strong in their interpretation of Haydn's sinfonia concertante.
The most spectacular event, though, were the performances by the Stuttgart Ballet, on 2 and 3 October, an appropriately lavish opening to the "German Festival in Egypt", a three week jamboree presented within the framework of the inauguration of the German University in Cairo. The Stuttgart Ballet Company is no newcomer to Cairo -- 14 years ago, in November 1989, they performed The Taming of the Shrew, choreographed by John Cranko, founder of the Ballet.
This time the Stuttgart Ballet presented four dances, brief sequences with little if any narrative. The first dance, Grosse Fuge, choreographed by Hans van Mannen, seemed to be a tribute to Beethoven's Great Fugue, Opus 133 for string quartet, and to the Cavatina, from the String Quartet No 13, Opus 130. The dance begins in romantic mood, with four women in white tights standing rather demurely in one corner of the stage while, on the other side, four men in extra-wide, extra-long black trousers, reminiscent of those worn by karate players, undertake the introductory dance against a steel-grey backdrop. The atmosphere remains steel-grey until the girls start moving, bringing with them a pinkish hue. The dance itself is an interesting medley of modern ideas with classical conceptions, beautifully choreographed and performed. At one point the men discard their long trousers, which is when a certain eroticism steps in. The general expression remains subtle as the audience was shown what can be done and undone with the human body. There is, naturally, no plot to the dance, with the exception of the eternal battle between the sexes. Brief moments of peace, and even briefer moments of love. The dance was perfect.
Mono-Lisa, choreographed by Itak Galili, was danced to the strange sounds of a train having some difficulty in getting off the tracks and other similar sound effects conceived and composed by Thomas Hofs and Itik Galili. It opened on several rows of spots in steel frames, casting a crude light on the dark stage, creating the atmosphere of a dungeon or prison. In these bizarre spatial surroundings, filled with sounds and visions of iron and steel, a couple of dancers in rust-coloured costumes twist and turn, twine and entwine in extraordinary convolutions and rapid pas-de-deux, with the ballerina always landing on the tips of her ballet-shoes. They were an exceptional couple in an exceptional dance, the incredible acrobaties executed with breathtaking ease. Grey atmospheres, with steel and iron fixtures and dark star-trek spaces seemed to be predominant. The next dance, Skew-Whiff, choreographed by Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, opened on yet another dark scene with one female and three male dancers in skin-coloured tights performing what seemed to be the unperformable, the impossible convolutions closely following the rhythm of Rossini's overture to La gazza ladra, the thieving magpie.
In the end we had Siebte Sinfonie, choreographed by Uwe Scholz to Beethoven's seventh symphony, performed by Cairo Opera Orchestra under the baton of James Tuggle. This was a modern white ballet, with tights rather than tutus, and the entire stage was bathed in white. Wagner had seen in Beethoven's seventh symphony the "apotheosis of dance", and the 12 couples performing on stage appeared to confirm that view. Here was choreography of the highest order. The Stuttgart Ballet were sensational.
