Night of nights

Al-Leila Al-Kabira comes to the Opera. Amina Elbendary and Youssef Rakha sing along
The Opera House has a traditional repertoire for the Christmas and the New Year season. If you are a regular you will know by now what to expect every year (and probably even who, for the New Year's concert has its regular goers). There will be The Nutcracker, and there will be Bach, and, on the last day of the year, Strauss. But this year the Opera introduced something else as well. And it was with delight that one looked forward to this variation on the annual theme. Running from December 27 to 30 there was, indeed, Act I of The Nutcracker, but following that there was more; the Santa Claus of the musical establishment was to surprise us yet, and his gift would turn out to be positively astounding.
Growing up in Cairo one has been to one too many a performance of the Cairo Ballet Company's Nutcracker over the years. The sets, the costumes, the choreography, they are all a bit too familiar. And yet there is some comfort in the predictability of the atmosphere. Even though the Christmas tree in the background looked rather lonely and dreary this year, it is somehow nice to think it will be there next year, too. And the music of the ballet, more than adequately performed, proved equally comforting.
The surprise, a breach from tradition that remains a rather rare occurrence at the Opera came in the guise of a new production of Salah Jahin's famous operetta Al-Leila Al-Kabira (The Big Night).
Jahin, who passed away in 1986, is celebrated as one of Egypt's most gifted cultural figures. A multi-faceted artist: Jahin was a colloquial poet, a cartoonist, a script writer, a journalist and even an actor. His words helped shape the national mood of Egypt in the 1960s and beyond. The operetta he wrote, Al-Leila Al-Kabira, at one level meant for children, remains popular with all age groups. The operetta captured not only the mood of the moulid but the heart-warming diversity of Egypt's popular life. It presents a wide variety of archetypes in the guise of characters present at the big night in question who, if they fall short of interacting due to Jahin's economy of means and the precise structure of the performance, remain eloquent. This "work for children" has assumed phenomenal status in the Egyptian cultural sphere. And what distinguishes Jahin's archetypes is that they somehow manage to be individual characters as well -- people one might really encounter at the moulid.
The Big Night is, as should be evident by now, the moulid's highlight, but it is also a microcosm of some sectors -- what are perceived to be the traditional sectors -- of Egyptian society, at least. Jahin's lyrics draw noisy, busy and colourful images. Full of distinctive archetypical characters, Jahin's vibrant scenes echo the hustle and bustle, the excitement and confusion that are the experience of going to a moulid. And true to Jahin's temperament, in the middle of the joy and excitement -- even ecstasy -- of this big celebration, there is also loss and confusion. Children go missing and mothers cry out in search for them: "O kind people, my daughter got lost, she is that tall/Her left ankle has a bracelet like this one."
There is no real story-line to Al-Leila Al- Kabira. Instead the operetta is like a snap-shot, or rather a peek into a moment of the moulid, with various independent scenes each leading into the next. This should not be misconstrued as an indication of sloppiness, however. Al-Leila Al- Kabira is a carefully structured work of art, in the tradition of the operettas of Sayed Darwish, which similarly drew on stock events and archetypal characters to create an intimate musical impression of space and time. In Salah Jahin's work, we witness the games people play, the singing, the circus, the clowns, the food that is sold, the petty squabbles, the flirtations -- a moment when norms are confusingly suspended, and one has the disorienting but ultimately rewarding sense of encountering hitherto latent aspects of oneself. And then we leave the moment behind and go home to quieter but perhaps equally confusing lives. What we take away with us is the magic of Egyptian popular life, an art of which Jahin was the uncontested master, together with a reinforced sense of our cultural identity.
Unlike the 1960s puppet theatre production we watched as children on television, this time Al-Leila Al- Kabira was performed on stage. Directed by Abdel-Moneim Kamel, it involved the collaboration of more than one company within the Opera House: The Cairo Opera Orchestra (led by Taha Nagui), the Cairo Ballet Company and the Arabic Music Ensemble and Choir (led by Selim Sahab) all had a part to play in this unprecedented feat. Just getting all those troupes to work together is in itself an exciting idea. They come from very different artistic backgrounds and practice divergent forms: when they join together in a performance that doesn't quite fit in any established musical form one can only hold one's breath. For Kamel's big night is not exactly a ballet (although one could sense he would rather it were), it is not even a musical. Instead one is left with an impression that this was more than one separate show performed simultaneously. The divorce between ballet dancers (on stage) and Arabic ensemble singers (in the orchestra pit) created an uncomfortable rift in the progress of the action. Yet on some level it worked, and the newness proved refreshing.
The ballet dancers weren't quite at ease with their roles in Al-Leila Al-Kabira, the rather classic choreography lagging behind the thoroughly Egyptian make up of the operetta. Such characters as the futuwwa and circus lion trainer at points seemed to be coming out of Swan Lake or Cinderella. The most popular character in the operetta (and lead female) is the belly dancer. Hers was probably the most interestingly choreographed role in this performance. Impersonating her here was Nadine, in what seemed a parody of a puppet, you could almost see the marionette's threads in some of her movements as she barely slipped and straightened again and again. And of course, this is how we remember the belly dancer, as a marionette. One had the feeling that marionette impersonation could have been developed further as a performance concept, in an attempt to bridge the gap between puppet theatre and ballet. And though there was undoubtedly some degree of this, the performance nonetheless teetered at the edge.
Jahin's lyrics were put to music by the late Sayed Mekkawi who collaborated with him on a number of songs. The two had a very close relationship. Shortly before his death, Mekkawi described his initial encounter with Jahin in these poetic terms: "It was as if I had completely lost my way and was wandering purposelessly until I met him: I was lost and he found me." Both poet and composer had a feeling for the traditional Egyptian psyche, one that is quite evident in this work. The spiritual and Sufi essence of the moulid is not lost in the lyrics or the music; buyers call out for their products -- chickpeas, ta'miyya, aragoz -- to the background of traditional rhythmic repetition of the chants "Allah" and "Hayy," for example. As Sayed Darwish's lesser but unflinchingly loyal disciple, moreover, Mekkawi reproduced the sounds of the popular neighbourhood with verisimilitude and power. In the present performance, Ahmed Ibrahim on vocals succeeded in conveying the moods of the various characters of the operetta with their varying ages and backgrounds; the umda, the futuwwa, the coffee shop owner, the sheikh, the visitor from Upper Egypt etc.. This production however, had a rushed attitude to it that is markedly different from the laid back, relaxed rhythm of Mekkawi's compositions -- a fault repeatedly to be found with the Opera's performances of Arabic, particularly grassroots music. The conductors were evidently a little too eager to deliver, but they did so in the Western mode by which they generally abide. And however impressive this may be in its own right, it was inevitable that it should take away from the intimacy of the experience -- an essential aspect of it.
The set designs by Mohamed El-Gharabawi matched the colourful nature of the lyrics and the music. Bright pinks and yellows and blues filled the stage. And for this relatively short performance (barely exceeding 40 minutes) the stage was allowed some variation in the form of a revolving structure that changed from circus to coffee shop to food stall depending on the scene in question. All very accomplished and high- tech, but nonetheless, perhaps a little too advanced for comfort. Again, the set designs made what remains to all intents and purposes a traditional show look a little too much like a ballet, a Western genre if ever one existed.
Awkwardness aside, there was more than a touch of the family get together to our night at the Opera, not least because of the number of little people in the audience. And for them such a night of both Nutcracker and Al-Leila Al- Kabira was an exciting holiday treat; they were singing along eagerly and clapping excitedly with the music: "It is the Big Night, dear and people are too many/ They fill all the stalls, father, coming from countryside and towns.... hey, hey, hey." One almost wished one had a child to take along -- just for the night. But fortunately for admirers of Jahin, who repeatedly declared that it was the child in him who propelled the creative impulse, and if only for the duration of the show, one could become a child, losing oneself in the innocent magic of the big night at the moulid.
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