Amal Choucri Catta watches, and listens to, the summer sky Summer song recital: ; venue: Open Air Theatre, Cairo Opera House, 17 July, 9pm Sunday night Cairene audiences were granted two main events at the opera's open air theatre: a spectacular show of fireworks on the Nile, celebrating Cairo National Day on 17 July, followed by soprano 's single vocal recital for this Cairene summer. Splashing their multi-coloured explosions into the idle cloudless sky, the fireworks succeeded in animating a rather lethargic audience: jumping out of their seats, forgetting their cell phones and their water bottles, they rushed into the gardens, admiring the myriads of coloured designs bursting and noisily expanding above their heads. Children started jumping joyously, extending their arms while trying to "catch a falling star". But the stars never fell, they just vanished into the dusk's indolent spaces as silence descended upon the gardens and old and young returned to their sears. The general mood was now ready for the second show. As the Diva appeared, following her three musketeers -- Salaheddin Abdallah on the piano, Ahmed Osman on the double-bass and newcomer Atef Galal on the drums -- the audience greeted her with enthusiastic applause. Soprano is a celebrated Prima Donna of Cairo's Opera House, admired as recently as last March at the Main Hall for her interpretation of Countess Almaviva in the Arabic version of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. Her musical studies started at the age of eight with the celebrated Olga Yassa, mother of Egypt's famous pianist Ramzi Yassa. graduated from the Cairo Conservatoire, piano department, with honours, receiving scholarships from the (then) West German Cultural Exchange DAAD and the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, which enabled her to study opera and vocal pedagogy at the Hannover Hochschuke fuer Musik und Theater, where she obtained her doctorate in 1988. Allouba was granted first prize at Berlin's Young Opera Singers Competition in 1985, and during 1987-1988 was soloist at the Detmold Opera House in Germany. She has furthermore performed in numerous European capitals, while recording and performing the Arabic world premiere of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni at Cairo's Opera House in 1988 and 1992. She sang the role of Norina in the inaugural Akhetanon production of Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale and was invited to sing in Amman with the Jordanian National Orchestra at a command performance attended by Queen Nour and the Jordanian Royal Family. Her repertoire ranges from Haendel to Menotti, comprising a large variety of lieder, oratorios, chamber works and all Egyptian lyric compositions for female voices. Allouba is a staff member of the Cairo Conservatoire and member of the Cairo Opera Company. She is likewise jury member of diverse local and foreign singing competitions. Several years ago, and her friends suddenly discovered her talent for musicals and popular songs and she has henceforth reserved the summer months for light musical performances at the opera's Open Air Theatre, or at Cairo's yearly Citadel Festival and, recently, at the Bibliotheka Alexandrina and the Kom Al-Dikka Roman arena in Alexandria -- another of Cairo Opera's venues. This summer, has offered one single performance at the opera's Open Air Theatre, which took place last Sunday in a mood filled with oldies and evergreens, as well as pleasant improvisations. The performance started off with a rhythmic, high-pitched version of Lisa Minelli's Cabaret, inviting everyone to "come hear the music play" while Abdallah masterfully tormented the keys, trying to keep up with Allouba's ardent liveliness. The animated mood stayed on fort the next song from the film Oliver, describing a lovely day and a "wonderful feeling", before turning to George Gershwin's musical Porgy and Bess, and Clara's famous lullaby Summertime, interpreted with amazingly high-pitched improvisation. From Elton John's Lion King Allouba went on asking "can you feel the love tonight", beforew turning Latin with "Quando, quando" -- reminding her audience of Perry Como and the good old days when melodies were pleasant and rhythms entertaining, and when a song was a song was a song and not just a noise. But Allouba rapidly snapped out of the mood and rushed into a meditative version of "it's impossible to ask a baby not to cry", while finally musing over "to live without love is just impossible". She remained in a sentimental mood, selecting French singer Gilbert Bécaud's Let Me Be, before turning to Negro Spirituals, evoking a "river she wanted to cross" and remembering "Jericho's walls that came tumbling down" while "feeling like a motherless child long ways from home". These were rather new songs, giving a different flavour to her recital. Feuilles Mortes is a French song based on a poem by Jacques Prévert: a lovely sentimental ditty, translated into English as "Autumn Leaves", sadly evoking the end of friendship, of love, of "summer kisses". Allouba sang it in French before closing the first part of the performance with a vivid Let's Twist Again. Killing Me Softly with His Song opened the second part with Allouba as enchantingly debonair as ever: a delightful tomboy spontaneously winning the sympathy of her different audiences. That night, as always, everyone loved her, though it must be said, there were those who did object to her lack of professional experience with the microphone and to her constant choice of high pitches. It must, however, also be said that is always a singer, never a crooner, neither were Montserrat Caballé, nor Julie Andrews for that matter. Allouba is, after all, until this very day, one of Cairo Opera's main lyric sopranos and will therefore be mostly making use of high pitches. Her next song was a lovely tune reminiscent of Paul Anka -- Strangers in the Night. All singers have loved it, as did all audiences: an enchanting song filled with thoughts of never-ending love, for "it turned out so right for strangers in the night". It was followed by Yesterday and John Lenon's Come Let Me Love You, while Sunrise, Sunset, from the musical Fiddler on the Roof and Shirley McLane's Big Spender threw romance to the wind. Allouba did return to romance with Domingo's Perhaps Love and Memory from the musical Cats. Memories, however, come and go and this time they left the stage while rhythm took over with Allouba singing "I'm gonna live forever" from the musical Fame. But, as she left the stage, the audience would not let her go. She then smilingly gave us a song we have all often heard and continue to love: Those Were the Days. A generational anthem if every there was one. The audience loved it, though this time they let her go, bidding her farewell, till next summer.
