Beyond the Danube
Amal Choucri Catta finds a slightly different new year
New Year's Concert; Cairo Symphony Orchestra; cond. Sergio Cardenas; Sara Galli, soprano. Main Hall, Cairo Opera House, 31 December and 3 January 8pm
Sergio Cardenas conducted Cairo's symphonists with positively Straussian elegance. The New Year's concert attracted, as always, a large audience eager to greet the new year with Strauss waltzes and Polkas and the inevitable Radetky March. This time, however, there was more to the concert than Strauss and Lehar: there was Gounod and Kalman and, above all, New Year's greetings from Mexico with music by Guiar, Rosas and Manuel Enriquez.
Johann Strauss junior preluded with the overture to his three-act operetta The Bat, a colourful opening, enchantingly presented. The orchestra seemed to have been primed for the concert, and they were determined to intrigue their audience, coupling a remarkable performance with festive, vivacious mood. All the solo sequences were perfect -- the harp, cello, brass, flute, strings and percussion were delightful, and topping them all was Cardenas, leading the entire orchestra to a triumphant apotheosis. His extraordinary musicianship captivated the audience, holding everyone spellbound.
The Bat, however, did not end with the overture: there was more to come as lively young Italian soprano Sara Galli glided onto the stage in a long black gown with sparkling bodice, rubbing her hands. When she began to sing Mein Herr Marquis, the celebrated aria from The Bat, it became obvious that here was a singer on the way to great things.
Strangely, her singing career did not begin with studying music: she had obtained a degree in political science before taking up singing and deciding on an operatic career. She has already toured several countries and has won a number of prizes that, if tonight's performance was anything to go by, are well- deserved.
Glowing, impassioned, she returned for two more arias in the first part of the concert: the gypsy song So elend und so treu, from Strauss junior's three-act operetta Der Zigeunerbaron, a complicated plot telling the tale of Sandor Barinkay who came to claim his ancestral lands only to find them overrun by gypsies. He fell in love with one of them, Saffi, who turned out to be a princess. The second aria was Franz Lehar's Vilja o Vilja Du Waldmagdelein from Act II of The Merry Widow where Hanna recounts the traditional folk tale of a maiden of the woods and a huntsman's unrequited love for her. Tender, serene, her voice soared into the hall to be met with shouted bravos at the end of the tune.
Sara Galli had conquered her listeners before the concert's first part was over: the case was the same with Cardenas' conducting. Strauss junior's Annen- Polka, Opus 117, followed by the Egyptian March, Opus 335 and Acceleration Waltz, Opus 234, were all admirably performed; spirited, and energetic the maestro swayed to the tunes with nonchalant precision: his waltzes exuberant, his marches ardent and his baton remarkably entertaining.
Franz von Suppe's overture to Elmar's three-act play Poet and Peasant was an extravagant opener for the concert's second part. Sara Galli reappeared with Charles Gounod's aria Ah, je veux vivre, from the five-act opera Romeo et Juliette. Colourful, invigorating, the copious love music was presented in its most sensuous, captivating vein. The aria gave Galli the opportunity to show her grand opera credentials. She remained on stage to sing her last aria, Emmerich Kalman's Heia in den Bergen from the three-act operetta Die Csardasfurstin. Hungarian Kalman is little performed in Egypt, which is regrettable. He drew inspiration from the stylised features of Hungarian music, his main model being the Viennese operetta of Johann Strauss and Franz Lehar. Born in 1882, he died in 1953. He had settled in Vienna and while not as consummate a modelist as Lehar, he secured a loyal and enthusiastic following. Die Csardasfurstin, written in 1915, was followed by eight operettas, including Grafin Maria and Die Herogin von Chicago, among his greatest triumphs. Sara Galli's show was over: the audience cheered as she left the stage.
The audience was then given two well-known Mexican tunes, Guadalajara and Over the Waves. It was at this point that Happy New Year appeared in bold letters above the stage and the instrumentalists started wearing sombreros and other kinds of headgear. Snow started falling onto the musicians, who had a hard time reading their scores. The flakes slowly subsided, but the mood had changed -- New Year was knocking on the door and the audience was hoping for the usual Blue Danube and the Radetzky-March. They got Strauss junior's Pizzicato Polka, followed by the Emperor Waltz, two lovely pieces but they wanted more. Finally, the Blue Danube having been performed during Ramadan, they did get the Radetzky-March, which they happily accepted. Though he composed 251 works, 152 of which were waltzes, the Radetzky-March, written in 1848 by Johann Strauss senior, is by far the strongest of this compositions. His eldest son, Johann Strauss junior, deservedly known as the Waltz King, produced over 400 waltzes and numerous operettas, polkas, gallops, marches and Perpetuum Mobile, as well as a ballet, Cinderella, completed by Bayer as Aschenbrodel. He died in 1899: among his fans are Richard Wagner, Arnold Schonberg and Johannes Brahms. With composers like the Strauss family, Franz von Suppe, Emmerich Kalman, Carl Zeller, Joseph Lanner, Carl Maria Ziehrer and more recently Oscar Straus and Robert Stolz, the Austrian waltz and operetta tradition continues until this very day.
The New Year's Concert was a great success: it was repeated three days later, on January, without any decorations, shorn of stars and Christmas trees. The party was over, grey days lay ahead. We just had the musicians and the music. Sara Galli was freezing again in the same gown, singing the same arias and getting fiery applause, even though the festive mood had vanished. And once again maestro Cardenas was granted well-deserved applause by his listeners.
