Nothing like heavenly bodies

By David Blake
Min Misr Da'awtu Ibni (); Nagui Youssef Zumur (composer), Sherif Mohieddin (conductor) and Nabila Erian (director); Main Hall: Cairo Opera House, 20 December
These days Christmas heavenly bodies are everywhere -- in myth, legend, folklore and comparative reality. Indeed, during this particular festive season the Cairo Opera has become a veritable Temple for the Beatification of Celestial Bodies. All the big festivals, having come together at the same time, jostle each other and it has been the happiest Christmas for years. And with two productions the Cairo Opera has shown it can still pull a living and stylish something out of the official bag.
Nabila Erian's prophesies about the unique power of were more than justified. It was an occurrence -- an event. As it played out, its qualities as a piece of theatre seemed to be too beautiful to be true.
The composer of the music, Nagui Youssef Zumur, is not a professional working musician. As he says, he works by day in the courts, by night composing music. And is not an opera nor an oratorio, but a piece bringing together many ancient musical forms. Janaceck tried it in his masterpiece The Makropolous Affair and the results, as with From Egypt, were grand and heroic without any recourse to the Romantic tradition. Baroque grandeur fitted very well to the musical portrayal of the simple family of the mystic marriage which shook the world.
The music is beautifully composed, sparing in its use of special effects -- in fact there weren't any. No suggestion of local colour -- the ancient Orient yet to materialise in historic time was absent. What was there was developed into a cleverly suggested feeling of ancient time and place using the most economical of means. Not austere or blankly chordal, but varied, fresh and descriptive. The orchestral sound was forever moving with energy through completely tonal areas. Yet this sound was new because there were signs of a desire on the part of the composer to incorporate Egyptian village tunes, having little to do with the folkloric. The sounds made by Zumur were original enough, sad-sounding and suggesting he has made a new Egyptian sound, neither Arabic nor Euro-American.
The music is very easy to listen to, with none of the stumble or black holes most contemporary composers seem to enjoy. It opens with a narration about the Holy Family, to a heart-beat sound, and gradually broadens to rich rhythms and very fresh melodies. Far up on a white cliff is perched the Holy Ghost. There music is sweet. There is nothing in the entire work to intimate an unholy world outside them, the world from which they are fleeing.
The Archangel Gabriel appears to Mary to strengthen her in her difficult position with hope and blessings. Mary is very beautifully composed: nothing hieratic in person or music. She alone has what could be called an aria, though it was short and immediately suggestive of her strength and pure belief in the destiny. One hoped it would go on forever, or just a bit longer, as its sound, shaped into a beautiful tune, was totally appealing. Everything about Nagui Youssef Zumur's music suggests growth and a sense of "voice".
Nabila Erian made a perfectly believable appearance as a Heavenly Body, dignified but radiant and replete with the wisdom of the world.
All the singing was good and easy, mostly because the composer, musically, is vocal. He understood that the voice prefers to float but not to flounder in nasty unvocal intervals. The chorus's work was easy, full-voiced and with a dignified sound. We were viewers at a unique event.
The Virgin rode a very handsome donkey. The old saying, "Never share a scene with a kid or an animal", did not apply to this performance. The donkey never did any of the things donkeys are supposed to do on stage, but was a creature nice and unusually pleasant. His steps and posture were professional.
As the work came to its end -- the birth of the Christ child, which is also a tremendous beginning -- it was clear the Opera Company had made a beautiful medieval pageant of the Holy Family. Beyond criticism, but not love.
Hang out all your Christmas banners: the Cairo Opera House has opened the way for a great future event -- a true Egyptian opera for everyone to enjoy
Christmas concert; Cairo Opera Company, Cairo Opera Orchestra and The Christmas Choir; arrangements by Nayer Nagui; Ivan Filev (conductor) and Gihane Morsi (stage coordinator); Main Hall Cairo Opera House, 22 December
Heavenly bodies galore. This was the best Gala the opera has given for years. The midnight Sun shone bright upon it. The theatre production, the work of stage coordinator Gihane Morsi, looked a dream of Christmas. Trees, lights, dazzle and flash alternated with quiet sombre effects. Nothing repeated itself. Each song or carol or orchestral interpretation of some ancient pieces -- and even rhythms -- were given new tastes and colour by Nayer Nagui's arrangements. His orchestra was a gala high-tone which never sank to bathos or the so often peppy rubbish which gets put over at Christmas and has helped Yuletide be low-tide.
The concert began right -- some awe, some gorgeous effects -- and then settled into a straight, newly fashioned menu of favourites placed under Gihane Morsi's bright magnifier. Sad, tender, often amusing, the theatre looked like a magic cavern into which splendid birds might arrive to strut their best effects and leave it to the next song-bird.
Beautiful voices, if you are keeping in touch with such things, are rare these days and getting rarer and more expensive all the time. So this display by the Cairo Opera was daring and stylish -- a Christmas bonus for Egyptian music.
The singing of the entire performance -- stars, chorus and the orchestra -- were an amazement. Song after song was sent up into the luminous heights of the Morsi hall of song. It was good and easy-going, without any sense of the rivalry that dogs all opera houses. It was, reassuringly, just a family bash. The sell out audience loved everything. It is invidious to name some and not all of these great solo performances. They were all splendid.
One thing obtrudes: why, with these voices and talents, with each performer producing splendid open tones, perfectly operatic, deportment distinguished and that lovely manner adopted by all singers when on their mettle, why oh why, so little opera? This was opera singing of highest quality. Opera houses are places of controversy, they breed troubles and the Cairo Opera has had more than its share lately, but one is duty-bound to thank each and every artist who contributed their share in this performance. Leaving out the debased word "culture" -- they can all do it, sing in operatic style with the right manner and well up to the highest international standards.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg