Continuing discoveries
Amal Choucri Catta talks with Amira Selim, one of the most distinctive voices to have emerged in Cairo for decades
It takes a great deal of optimism to choose an operatic career in Egypt. There are not, after all, going to be that many opportunities, what with the brevity of the season and the limitations of the repertoire. Neither of which, thankfully, served to discourage Amira Selim.
She graduated from the Cairo Conservatoire in 1999, and during her years of study regularly followed international summer courses for vocal technique and interpretation in Italy. She also attended summer courses at the International Academy of Nice in 2000 and a year later was awarded a scholarship by the French government which has enabled her to continue post-graduate studies at the École Normale de Musique de Paris. In the same year she obtained the diplome supérieur d'exécution, and is now preparing for the diplome supérieur d'art lyrique, to be followed by the diplome supérieur de concertiste in 2004.
Since she began performing in public some seven years ago Amira Selim has never disappointed her audiences. Not that she is content to rest on her laurels: difficult to satisfy, she is seldom quite happy with herself. There is always more to be done, more to achieve. And in Paris, it seems, she has discovered a whole new world.
"It is a world I never knew existed and the discovery came like a revelation, opening my eyes and sharpening my senses to things of which I was never really aware. Among the things I discovered is that in Cairo we spend too much time on unimportant matters rather than persevering in our work. In Cairo, for instance, singers who have finished their studies at the Conservatoire are somehow automatically assumed to have arrived at the top. They seldom realise that they are on the bottom rung of the ladder, and that their ascent is just beginning, and it will require constant, unceasing, intensive work. And this is a message I would like to convey to younger generations: that it is necessary to be resolute in giving your enterprise the utmost of your energy and your time."
There is a well worn, perhaps too well worn, path followed by local singers. They become members of the lyric department of the Cairo Opera House, regularly performing the few parts that have been chosen for them while, at the same time, they are appointed to a teaching position at the opera or the Conservatoire from where they eventually retire at the age of 60. Needless to say some do fly over the rainbow and travel elsewhere with scholarships or without. Some even succeed in finding a working compromise between foreign and local performances, though they are sadly few. The remainder continue to consider themselves local stars, singing their yearly repertoire and adding, once in every blue moon, a new part.
In Paris it is quite different, says Amira Selim, and the difference begins with the exams.
"There they have something they call the éliminatoires, which involves eliminating all those who will not participate, while choosing the participants. I remember the first year was very hard: we were 20 and only five were chosen. This system is not being applied at the Conservatoire, nor at the Music Academy.
"In my first year I was placed in déchiffrage, comprising, among other things, of sight reading, polyphony and direction, as well as singing. And the stress in singing instruction does not consist of giving melody to a text, but is placed on diction, on articulation and of how to use both in order to help the singing. Now here is something we don't do in Cairo: here we show our voice without bothering too much about the text. Which is a pity. In Paris Caroline Dumas taught me the meaning of melody, the meaning of the lied, the phrasé, and how to sing verse. As you know, there is so much technique in good singing about which the layman knows nothing. And I do believe we should be able to learn all that in Cairo."
"All that" is what Caroline Dumas tries to teach singers in her Cairo master classes. Some of them grasp the importance of her courses, others don't.
"Technique," insists Amira Selim, is of the utmost importance. "It gives strength to the voice and helps its projection; it also gives the voice colour and value."
Which is something of which Amira Selim makes elaborate use. During her recent recital at Cairo Opera House, under the title Moment musical, she sang a series of difficult melodies and arias in German, French, English and Italian with perfect diction and fascinating colour. Gustav Mahler's HŠnsel und Gretel, Richard Strauss's Breit œber mein Haupt, Claude Debussy's Green, Ernest Chausson's Serenade and two romances by Rachmaninov made up the programme, alongside arias from Verdi's Falstaff, Bellini's I Capuletti e i Montecchi, Mozart's Zaide, Rossini's Maometto II and the Bernstein operetta Candide. An extremely demanding programme, performed with a wise and elaborate use of technique giving value and beauty to her fascinating voice. She attracted a full and appreciative house, though sadly I noticed a remarkable dearth of her fellow singers among the crowds.
Selim remains grateful for the opportunities that she has received.
"I shall be forever thankful to Madam Caroline for all she is teaching me. You see, in Paris I am learning something every single day. And there I am not treated as anything other than a good, promising young singer, like all my colleagues.
"There is not only appreciation for the voice but also for the person. In Paris they value me as I am, with my qualities and my imperfections, my good and bad sides, and they are honest in letting me hear what they think of me. I am never knifed in the back, but I do receive, if necessary, blunt opinions expressed openly. Which I do prefer, of course, because this way I learn a lot about myself and about what others think of me. Which gives me the option to change, or not, according to circumstances. A singer, an artist, a musician, cannot live alone in his own cocoon. He does not belong only to himself but also to a community, a society, a people.
"No artist can be satisfied to stand alone on a pedestal while looking down at everyone else. A singer's career goes beyond the stage, the limelight, the applause and the good reviews: it goes much deeper and is much more humane. It is about being a human being among other human beings, and having something to say.
"Human contact is a very important element in every artist's career, much more important, in the long run, than applause. And this is what I am learning in Paris, and for which I am particularly thankful. It gives me a new vision of my eventual career as a singer."
But where, and in what form, will that career eventually take off?
"That," she says, with what is fast becoming a trademark dose of realism, surprisingly rare in her chosen profession, "is too early to decide. I shall, of course, be happy to continue belonging to the Cairo Opera House, because it is my home. And I am very grateful to the Cairo Opera for having given me all the chances and the possibilities I have been granted until now."
(She has sung leading roles in The Barber of Seville, Don Pasquale, Rigoletto, L'Elisir d'amore, Il Campanello, Falstaff, Lakmé, Lucia di Lamermoor, Bastien and Bastienne, Il signor Bruschino, L'occasione fa il ladro, La cambiale del matrimonio, and La voix humaine, both in Cairo and elsewhere.)
"Needless to say", she continues, "I shall always be available for Cairo Opera House, regardless of any eventual career abroad. I would also like to go into teaching, mainly with youngsters. However, seeing things realistically, I must say that, for the time being, I shall concentrate on my studies and on Paris, for which I am grateful, and then we shall see what will happen..."
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 19 - 25 June 2003 (Issue No. 643)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/643/cu5.htm