By Mursi Saad El-Din Switzerland's contribution to the Twentieth Jubilee of Cairo's Opera House, titled --Swiss Tales 2008�, pompously opened at Cairo Opera's Main Hall, on Sunday, 13 January, by Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, in the presence of Egypt's first lady, Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, and the president of Switzerland, Mr. Pascal Couchepin. It was one of those jovial nights, filled with bright --Hellos� and --how- do-you-dos�, amongst hugs and kisses by the society's elite. The show was therefore quite late. Some members of the audience and a few of the children started getting impatient, and when the spectacle finally began, it sounded like a fairy tale, with a serenely melodious composition by Michel Bastet: --Once upon a time�. That night was François Lindemann's --Piano Seven� night. His fabulous keyboard group had been applauded at Cairo Opera's Main Hall 10 years ago. At the time there were only the seven grand pianos with seven virtuoso pianists. Today, a number of innovations have been added to the performance, making the show livelier and largely reducing the somewhat repetitive monotony. Lindemann is undoubtedly a man with a dream. As a composer and a brilliant pianist, he has already created several groups: a duo, a trio, a quintet, and an octet. Winner of the grand prix for artistic creation in 1997, he also composes for contemporary dance companies as well as for the theatre and is involved in mixing music from different cultures with his own ensemble. Lindemann created --Piano Seven� in 1987: they have been travelling around the world ever since to enrich their artistic experience, and have given around 150 concerts in Asia, Brazil, Lebanon, Egypt, France and Switzerland. The music performed by --Piano Seven� is a crossover of European piano music of the twentieth century and elements of popular music, such as Jazz and Tango, composed by each member of the ensemble, all of whom are excellent pianists; one of them also plays the accordion. This time, however, Lindemann presented two newcomers, Nicolas Levon Maret on vibraphone- percussion and Stephanie de Caillet on the violin. The latter is without a doubt a very special lady, the real star of the entire show. Slender and elegant in her long black gown, she started playing and never stopped. Turning her hand to different moods of music, she turned aggressive or romantic, petulant and capricious or serenely calm and dreamy. She was the Prima Donna of all the tunes performed, never giving herself a moment to catch her breath. Once she had tuned her violin with the pianos, she joyfully went on her fiddling spree, wandering around the stage and stopping at one of the pianos where she pursued her musical performance. Thus from Bastet's sweet and lovely --Once upon a time�, she vigorously opened the tempo of Lindemann's --Tango Negro�, while on the long white screen at the backdrop dancing feet were projected. The scene was red and black, with a red background and black-stockinged, high-heeled female feet slowly twisting and turning or rapidly twiddling around black- shod male trousers. These responded lovingly to the touch and went on a romp around the female ankles. This erotic, though rather amusing, video-game was accompanied by a quite impressive composition of tango-music, of which the violin was queen . Her tone came clear and strong and her invigorating rhythm was an eloquent invitation to the dance. The lower pitches, played on the G-D-strings, were as powerful and as impressive as the high ones. De Caillet is 30 years young. Winner of the Stresa International Competition for Young Musicians, she was a member of the Varga Festival Orchestra and the orchestra of --Tibor Varga School of Music�, performing a large number of concerts in Europe. She has won several prizes and awards, playing with different orchestras, and in 2002 she was selected from among hundreds of candidates to be a member of the --Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester�, performing, among others, under Claudio Abbado. She is, furthermore, a member of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra: her curriculum vitae eloquently witnesses her dedication to music. It would surely be delightful to invite this first lady of strings to give a concert at the Main Hall with Cairo Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Swiss Maestro Andreas Sporri. On --Seven-Pianos-night� the mood turned from red- and-black Tango-video to Lindemann's --Milonga del Gato� and from Valentin Peiry's --Aria di servizio� to Yannick Delez's --Agua�, followed by Michel Bastet's --Glouglou� and Olivier Rogg's --Valse du jardinier�, while on the video screen large white vanes appeared, animated by invisible winds. The revolving vanes of different, modern windmills were a conscious sign of the ensemble's involvement in the world's problems of pollution, of fading energy and melting glaciers. Or, so we thought, expecting more video-involvement as the different tunes came on. But that was not the case: after the vision of a tree on rich, green soil, evoking more greenery in the scenery, we returned to plain video-technical games, with tapping fingers on a plank, and a vision of the piano's keys and hammers --en movement�. We were likewise given Asian and African picturesque views as well as auto-portraits of each of the seven pianists, the violinist and the percussionist Nicholas Levon Maret. And in the end, no one knew to which of the tunes the video-pictures belonged. But, that did not really matter, for the pianists were brilliant and the music really quite spectacular. As for Maret's performance, it was not of the aggressive type, it was, on the contrary, rather discreet. He gave us both the vibraphone and the percussion, visibly taking into consideration that he was accompanying seven pianos and not a gigantic jazz orchestra. Levon enjoys a vivid sense of humor: his solo parts were great. In the end, Pierre Luc-Valet's --Olinda� and Rogg-Lindemann's --Skird� closed the pianistic show. As the stage grew dark and the music stopped, the audience asked for more and it was briefly given. The mood was filled with smiles and the --good- byes� were just as sweetly filled with kisses as had been the --Hellos�. The audience was visibly happy with the entertaining evening, with the lavish opening of the --Swiss tales 2008� and with Lindemann's spectacular pianisms.
