Amal Choucri Catta samples the Cairo Opera House's upcoming season's delights As the curtain rises on a new season at the renovated Cairo Opera House, the importance granted to ballet and dance performances during the next few months comes as no surprise. While seeking treatment in Italy, Abdel-Moneim Kamel, director and choreographer of the Cairo Opera's Ballet Company, has been busily organising the programme for the coming season. Audiences owe this current Cairo Opera House director special gratitude for his efforts, his efficiency and his success in creating a captivating programme of dance performances highly popular among all audiences. Russian ballet, Spanish flamenco, Austrian, French, Syrian, Indian, Turkish and Argentinean dances, as well as local performances, have all been arranged for. Opening on 4 September at the Main Hall, Cairo's 11th Song Festival will introduce Argentinean tango, while Indian dances will be performed on 8 September by the reputed Shiamak Davar Ensemble and on the 11th by the Manipuri and Bharatnatyam Dance Groups at the Small Hall. The elusive Turkish Mevlewi Whirling Dervishes will make a long-awaited appearance with singer Ahmed Oezhan on the 15th at the Main Hall. In the framework of the Russian Children's Ballet Season, September will also be introducing Serguey Prokofiev's lovely ballet Cinderella, performed by the young dancers of the Ukrainian Kharkov Children's Ballet Theatre. Egyptian dance theatre will present Walid Aouni's Between Dusk and Dawn to music composed by Nader Abbasi, who will also be conducting the Cairo Opera Orchestra on the occasion of the 17th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre. The final dances of September will be granted by the French Petite Fabrique troupe on 28 September with a single performance of Les Fables de La Fontaine. While autumn sets in, October will present morning performances of Abdel-Moneim Kamel's Al-Leila Al-Kebira, and Mustafa Erdogan's eminent Fire of Anatolia will once again captivate Cairene audiences. This marvellous Turkish ensemble was the talk of the town last May following the three consecutive nights of their fabulous show at the Main Hall. This time, however, the Aida Theatre on the Pyramids Plateau will be the venue for their performances scheduled for the end of November. The year will be closing with a plethora of dances: famous dancer and choreographer Julio Bocca will enchant viewers with his Argentinean ballet in December; while the Cairo Opera Ballet Company will follow with Leon Minkus' Don Quixote, in cooperation with Julio Bocca and the Cairo Opera Orchestra under the batons of Ivan Filev and Abbasi. The month will close with six performances of Tchaikovsky's season staple Nutcracker ballet, directed by Abdel-Moneim Kamel. Performers will be dancing into the New Year with the Syrian Enana Dance Theatre scheduled for two nights in January 2006, while the Royal Danish Ballet will presumably present a single performance around the 12th. January will pursue its spectacular dancing sequences with Espaoa Baila Flamenco's 24 dancers performing an extraordinary show titled Flamenco de Madrid. The month will come to a close with the Cairo Ballet Company's new production of Igor Stravinsky's The Rites of Spring, a ballet in two parts depicting pagan Russia, originally choreographed by Nijinsky. The company will return at the end of February with Mikis Theodorakis' popular Zorba, further enhanced by the vocal participation of the A Capella Choir. The end of February will also herald the Russian Ballet Season, with the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre presenting Leo Delibes' Coppelia or The Girl with Enamel Eyes, based on a story by E T A. Hoffmann and premiered in Paris in 1870. Familiar to Cairene audiences, the Novosibirsk Company presented operas, concerts and ballets on Cairo's Main Hall in 1994 and 2000, acquiring instant local popularity. While March's winds will be blowing and April's fools rushing, five performances of passionate Russian folklore and two nights of sizzling tangos animated by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Montevideo should not be missed. In the meantime, swans will be waiting in the aisles -- they were sorely missed for several seasons while biding their time. In lovely white Tutus and fluttering wings they will finally reappear for five nights in Tchaikovsky's celebrated three-act ballet Swan Lake at the beginning of April. They will be followed by no less than the famed French choreographer Karin Saporta at the opening of the year's Dance Theatre Festival. With bounteous May inspiring "mirth, youth and warm desire", the Cairo Opera Ballet Company and Orchestra will present Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, in cooperation with the Promusica Choir from Berlin, and June will bid farewell to the season with two nights of remarkable dancing performances by the Austrian Dance Company from Graz. If dances are getting the lion's share this season, opera and concert are likewise among the privileged: Verdi's Aida will return for four nights in September, followed in November by Puccini's Madame Butterfly while a new Arabic opera titled Miramar, by Tawfiq El-Hakim to music by Sherif Mohieddin, will be staged at the Main Hall in December. Mohieddin will be conducting the Bibliotheca Alexandrina's Chamber Orchestra for the occasion. With the advent of the New Year, Mozart's Don Giovanni will be gracing the Main Stage for seven nights in February, while Ruggiero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana will return in May. Verdi's La Traviata will close the operatic season in June. Audiences will furthermore applaud a number of musicals and arias by local and foreign orchestras and chamber music ensembles from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Latin America, Serbia and Japan. Cairo Symphony Orchestra will be offering their weekly Saturday concerts, celebrating the 250th anniversary of one of the greatest musical geniuses the world has ever known: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Born in Salzburg in 1756, the master will be duly feted by musicians and orchestras worldwide in 2006. Cairo's Opera Orchestra will similarly be entertaining audiences with regular Gala concerts, while the Selim Sahab and Salah Ghobashi orchestras will present their usual Arabic soirées with the participation of a number of vocal soloists, while granting special attention to the Arabic Music Festival scheduled in November. With over 600 performances in the Cairo Opera House's main and small halls, as well as an adequate number of spectacles at the opera's other venues, audiences are bound to enjoy delightful evenings this upcoming season.
