Amal Choucri Catta previews a richly varied if somewhat repetitive season With around 40 symphonic evenings, 20 gala concerts, eight ballets, five operas and 22 assorted shows at the Main Hall alone, the Cairo Opera will no doubt draw in a vast audience this season. This despite the fact that most of the shows on offer are remakes, with a marked scarcity in new productions. Starting on 8 September with a Cairo Opera Orchestra gala concert, conductor Nader Abbassi will present one of his most popular programmes featuring extracts from renowned musicals like Candide, Phantom of the Opera and Caroussel, with, among others, soprano Nevine Allouba, bass-baritone Reda El-Wakil and soprano Amira Selim, who is now performing in Europe. This will be followed by Cairo Symphony Orchestra's first concert under the baton of the Swiss Christoph Mueller, recently appointed principal conductor of the Cairo Symphonists. Thankfully September will not be without a taste of dance, with four nights of Zorba, choreographed by Lorca Massine and performed by the Cairo Opera Ballet and Orchestra, with the A Capella Choir and soloists Hani Hassan, Ahmed Yehia, Walid Abdel-Wahab and the lovely mezzo-soprano Hanan El-Guindi. Though no new creation, Zorba continues to fascinate audiences every time it is performed. September also promises two nights of marimba by the Marimba de Concierto de Bellas Artes, with director Alfonso Bautista Vasquez from Guatemala. This will be followed by two performances of Quicksand, the latest production of Cairo Opera's Modern Dance Theatre Company, created by director-choreographer Walid Aouni, who relies on piano compositions by Klara Schumann and her husband. October will start off with an interesting Chinese Cultural Week, followed by four nights of excerpts from Il Barbiere di Siviglia, with the Cairo Opera Orchestra collaborating with Opera Company stars to please the audience. Oriental flavours do not come until November, which opens with seven nights of Polovtsian dances from Alexander Borodin's four-act opera Prince Igor, choreographed by Abdel-Moneim Kamel and Serguey Krupho, with the Cairo Opera Ballet and Orchestra. Then comes , a colourful, folklore-inspired puppet play-turned-dance, performance. The last 10 days of the month will be given over to the yearly Arabic Music Festival, which tends to have its own, numerous devotees. With daylight hours dwindling and winter settling in, two operas and one ballet are planned for December. Four nights of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida will be followed by Mozart's two-act opera Cosi fan tutti -- both celebrating the Egypt-Italy Year. The year closes with Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake rather than the customary Nutcracker, which has monopolized the Christmas stage for years, with the waltzes of the second act of the latter ballet delighting young and old alike. No one will miss another, timeless performance, however, the New Year Concert on 31 December, initiated by the Cairo Symphonists' first head conductor, Ahmed El-Saedi. This time round it is Christoph Mueller who should bring the year to an enchanting close. In January 2005 swans will still be swimming in the lake before yielding the stage to the Bashkir State Opera and Ballet Theatre, which will give Cairo three promising nights of ballet with Leon Minkus' three-act La Bayadère, famed for its superb music, lavish colours and difficult last act -- a challenge for the best of ballerinas. The month will be closing with the season's first new production, Giacomo Puccini's two-act opera Madame Butterfly, with Cairo Opera Orchestra and singers. February opens with the Austrian ABC Dance Company, closely followed by a string of amorous entanglements, excerpts from Bizet's Carmen presented by the Cairo Opera Orchestra under Abbassi's excellent baton. Five nights of Abdel-Moneim Kamel's delightful interpretation of Le Corsaire by the Cairo Ballet Company follow, based on music by four different composers, Adolphe Adam, Riccardo Drigo, Leo Delibes and Cesare Pugni, and inspired by Byron's poems. Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, with choir and orchestra, comes next. With flowers blooming, in March spring brings three nights of "No greater love", an operatic performance organised by soprano Nabila Erian, followed by six nights of Mozart's Nozze di Figaro. The month closes with a return to Walid Aouni's Klara Schumann-inspired Quicksands. Three nights of Shazka, a Russian puppet show, are sure to bring a change of mood at the start of April, with the rest of the month wholly reserved for concerts and musical soirées with pianist Moushira Issa, tenor Sobhi Bedeir, cellist Hassan Moataz and the Mexican conductor Enrique Batiz. May and June seem to be devoid of serious programming other than a celebration of the Spring Feast with five nights of Nader Abbassi's Between Dusk and Dawn, performed by the Cairo Opera Orchestra and Modern Dance Company, with choreography by Walid Aouni. Of the six opera performances planned for June, as yet we know only of Isis and Osiris, an Egyptian ballet in five tableaux, choreographed by Erminia and Abdel-Moneim Kamel, with music by Gamal Abdel-Rehim. This will be staged not at the Main Hall but at the Pyramids on 2 June. There is nothing new on the horizon. Indeed with the exception of Madame Butterfly and Between Dusk and Dawn, everything has been seen, often more than once -- a fact that seems to hold true for the Small Hall and Gumhouriya Theatre as well. Both will host the Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre in September, with Ramadan evenings taking place at the Small Hall from 15 October to 13 November. From 20 to 29 November the 13th Arabic Music Festival will occupy the Small Hall, with the stage used as a Cairo International Film Festival venue from 1 to 9 December. The Small Hall hosts, among other things, the German-based Egyptian cellist Nagui Habashi, "Moroccan Culture Days", singing by Iman Mustafa and Sobhi Bedeir and Friends, and a piano recital by Gaswan Zerikly. Also at the Small Hall, oboist Tarek Mahran, guitarist Emad Hamdy and violinist Marwa Sami will be performing in early October. Comedian Ahmed Nabil will be giving a pantomime show on 10 October, while on 16 November flautist Rania Yehia will play. Come December several renowned soloists will take over the Opera's fringe venues. These include oud virtuoso Nassir Shamma, pianist Elena Dzamatchvilli, violinist Hassan Sharara, flautist Inas Abdel-Dayem and pianist Wael Farouk. Christmas celebrations include concerts by the Bells Band, violinist Sami Ibrahim and soprano Nevine Allouba, while a small-scale, as yet unnamed opera is planned for 30 December. The Austrian Franz Schmidt Chamber Orchestra gives a concert on 13 February, with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra celebrating the Arab Composers Festival later in the year. Likewise the Gumhouriya Theatre hosts only a handful of interesting performances: a performance of Nathan der Weise in the context of the German Festival, the Canadian Gryphon Trio and the South African Nateshwar Dance Company all take place in October. December brings the Spanish Musica Ficta Company, while two nights of opera excerpts with soloists and choir are to take place in February. The Gumhouriya will also host a few concerts of Arabic and light music, closing in June with the yearly Modern Dance Theatre Festival, title "Encounters", presenting work by Swiss and Egyptian choreographers. The Gumhouriya will likely remain closed for the greater part of the season. With the advent of Abdel-Moneim Kamel as the head of the National Cultural Centre, changes are nonetheless liable to take place: as an artist, performer, director and choreographer, he aims at a bold series of developments that will hopefully vitalise the Cairo Opera House after a period of lethargy.
