Carmen in motion

Few had the good fortune to attend the show that inaugurated the Cairo Opera House 20 years ago, writes Sherif Sonbol : the Carmen of Antonio Gades

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Carmen ; Blood Wedding and Flamenco Suit, the other two performances given by the troupe

Another chance became available only last year, when I shot the performance for a photographic volume published on the 20th anniversary of the Opera. A Spanish performance, it was held to celebrate Spain's new position as the president of the EU. The show is so brilliant that even Ermenia Kamel, artistic manager of the Cairo Ballet Company, skipped her own rehearsals to come and watch the rehearsals I was shooting -- "I really admire this show," she repeatedly announced.

Gades's Carmen is an almost purely emotional outline of Prosper Merimee's timeless story, its pace and rhythm drawing on cinematic techniques -- where reality and imagination intermingle and melt one into the other. These impressions make for powerful photographs capturing time and motion, and it seems apt to give thanks not only to the performers but to the institutions that brought them to us.