Amal Choucri Catta rocks to the rhythm of the new season Gala Concert, Cairo Opera Orchestra, conductor Nader Abbassi, soloists Amira Selim, Nevine Alouba, Jacqueline Rafik, Reda El-Wakil, Elhami Amin, Tamer Tawfik, Cairo Opera House Main Hall, 8 September Nader Abbassi came back from his summer vacation, as always, full of performances and plans. Only last week he eloquently inaugurated the main hall's new season with one of his favourite gala concerts, mesmerising performers and audience alike with the power and purpose of his baton. This virtuoso always combines elegance and ardour, and his concerts are filled with vitality. Opening with a theme from Steven Spielberg's ET, a recent addition to the orchestra's repertoire. John Williams's music is colourful, and it was performed, to the audience's delight, with the appropriate vim. So were the Sound of Music and Carousel by Richard Rodgers, who would have loved the soloists in particular had he been present that night. His ghost was sufficient for most, it seemed, for the audience was enraptured by Jacqueline Rafik's vocal introduction, bringing the famous hills to life with a touch of sadness, rather more demurely than Julie Andrews, as she delivered the buoyant tune. Nor was Nevine Alouba any less enchanting in the drama of her black gown, helped to no end by the rhythms of If I love you. Also new were the overtures from Phantom of the Opera and Candide, and Glitter and Be Gay, sung by Amira Selim. People glittered alright, notably to a moving tune from Claude-Michel Schoenberg's Les misèrables, Bring him home, exquisitely rendered by Elhami Amin. Amira Selim and Rafik did a dainty duet invoking a castle in the clouds, Reda El-Wakil spread gravity with Stars, a rather different tune from the same musical, then Selim came on again, with a piece of Frederick Loewe's My Fair Lady, Alouba and Amin relived Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story with Tonight, and everything was marvellous. The first half closed with Impossible Dream from Mitch Leigh's Man of La Mancha uniting all six soloists with unfettered exuberance. Strange that the second half should prove even more transporting, a delicious romantic Valhalla in which Rafik, Selim, Amin and Alouba as well as Tamer Tawfik and Reda El-Wakil working wonders with such cherished favourites as Phantom of the Opera and Candide, again, Jerome Kern's Show Boat and Marvin Hamlich's Chorus Line, which brought the concert to a frenzied end with all six magicians working their spells in unison, and Selim in particular demonstrating not only vocal prowess but a fantastic capacity for comedy. No Opera House crowd was happier in the recent history of the main hall. Opening Concert, Cairo Symphony Orchestra, conductor Christoph Mueller with soprano Iman Mustafa, mezzo-soprano Uta Christina Georg and the A Capella Choir, Cairo Opera House Main Hall, 11 September New season's real premiere was courtesy of the Cairo symphonists, the brand-new Swiss baton of Christoph Mueller, who started off the occasion with a brief speech, working its way through unfamiliar minds and hearts -- or trying to. Starting with an orchestral suite by Mohamed Abdel-Fattah, an Egyptian pioneer of multimedia music -- somewhat disappointingly performed, it has to be admitted -- this work of seven extremely brief movements, combining Oriental with Occidental sounds, was closely followed by Gustav Mahler's demanding second symphony in C-minor, Resurrection, with soloists Iman Mustafa and Uta Christina Georg, and the A Capella Choir, directed by Maya Gvineria. No newcomer to Cairo, the symphony drew a smaller audience than on previous occasions. It drew a very small audience, in fact, evidencing the tendency to flee long symphonies. The first three movements, a mighty funereal march followed by a congenial vision of tranquillity and, finally, a sense of ghostliness punctuated by moments of sarcasm, were performed powerfully enough. The good mezzo voice of Uta Christina Georg in the fourth movement proved weak in the lower pitches, while the full power of the maestro, a Mahler expert, became obvious in the fifth movement, with soprano Iman Mustafa and Georg together celebrating the hero's rise from the dead. That said, and the audience's love for Georg and the choir notwithstanding, Mueller would be well advised to avoid long symphonies in the future -- and to try rebuilding his orchestra, to whose current weakness this concert could on the whole testify. Indeed in the wake of the departure of the orchestra's reformer and principal conductor, Ahmed El-Saedi, last year, the musicians went through one trial after another, what with the Mexican Sergio Cardenas frequently absent and focussed on Mexican music and some of the best musicians leaving in El- Saedi's trail. Undisciplined, lacking motivation and cheer, they have often undertaken superficial and unconvincing interpretations. Perhaps the audience's positive response to present offering signals the first stage of recuperation -- and eventual return to glory.
