Amal Choucri Catta is transported into the esoteric Ballet Mannheim, Germany, presenting Bach's "Goldberg variations", with Horus piano duo. Venue: Main hall, Cairo Opera House 9 to 11 January, Alexandria Opera House 13 January, 8pm On opening night, it was raining cats and dogs, yet no one wanted to miss the show. When everyone was finally seated, in their wet or dry clothes, the curtain rose, revealing a lonely piano in a grey podium in the farthest end, centre-stage. The entire scene was grey and the mood serene and peaceful as the first bars of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Goldberg variations" filled the hall. The event was new: who would have thought of ballet with one of Bach's most prestigious works as basis for the choreography? As the dancers came floating onto the stage, their movements evocative of the "variations'" musical pattern, one was reminded of the tale that has been sown around the composition, according to which the work was commissioned by the Russian ambassador to Saxony, Count Keyserlingk, who was suffering from insomnia, to be played by Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, a student of Bach and a composer himself. However, according to critics and music historians, this tale is untrue, though it seems to stick to the composition, and has been adopted as basis for Kevin O'Day's choreographical dance interpretation, with pianists Nora Emody and Ahmed Abou Zahra. The event took place last week at Cairo Opera's Main Hall, with three performances by "Mannheim ballet" of the National Theatre Mannheim, Germany, with the American Kevin O'Day as artistic director and the Canadian Dominique Dumais as choreographer. The "Goldberg variations" were perfectly divided into two parts, the first of which was brilliantly interpreted on the piano by the Hungarian Nora Emody, often applauded on Cairo Opera's Main Stage. The scene relied on Goldberg's "introductory aria" followed by the first variations, while the dancers flocked in, clad in grey to suit the grey atmosphere, as well as the panels boarding each side of the stage and the piano's podium. The mood was a bitter-sweet mixture of myrrh and frankincense in an imaginary Zen garden, caught up between space and time as the dancers seemed to be soaring into worlds unknown while basking in the glory of everlasting beauty. Their performance was perfect, one could have watched them for hours. At times, the simple grass-green backdrop turned into a deep blue, reminiscent of serene azure skies and clear, cold horizons, while the piano magnificently unfolded its journey into the "variations'" labyrinths and the dancers rejoiced in following the music. Adapting movement to a composition as important and as demanding as Bach's "Goldberg variations" was undoubtedly not an easy feat: it required an immense amount of intelligence, of love and understanding of both the music and the dance. There was as much philosophy in the choreography as there was knowledge of Bach's musical intentions. Therefore, O'Day and Dumais should be particularly praised. When Johann Sebastian Bach wrote what was to become the "Goldberg variations", he titled the work "Aria with different variations for the two-manual harpsichord, composed especially for amateurs, for the recreation of their minds", or, in other words: "to refresh their spirits". The work is an 80-minute piece comprising 30 variations arranged into an order so cunning that it constitutes one of the great structures in our musical literature. The 30 variations divide up into 10 sets of three, like 10 little suites, each made up of three movements. The first two movements, each time, are a pair of contrasting pieces, dances or songs, or a piece of virtuoso display. Except for the last variation, the third and last movement in each little suite is a Canon. The variety and contrast between one variation and the next is the first miracle of this piece: and Bach makes variety in different ways. The "Goldberg variations" are full of eighteenth- century dances. A popular slow dance in Bach's time was the "Sarabande" an ancient dance in three-time, which has been described as a sort of stately predecessor of the waltz. However, the great "Sarabande" in the "variations" is the "aria" itself, the starting and ending point of the whole cycle. In his "Goldberg variations", Bach touches on an extraordinary range of human experiences, from the most sublime to the ridiculous. One might compare the "Goldberg variations" to a journey that seems to move endlessly onwards: every movement appears to be taking us into a different world or even into a network of contrasting worlds. At times, however, one does get the feeling of a person remaining all the time rooted to the same spot, yet, the longer he remains there, the more deeply he realises where it is that he is. Furthermore, it must be said that the mood of the work is often of an esoteric, spiritual one, brilliantly "translated" into the movement by the choreographer. The second part of the performance came on with two pianos: Emody's on top of an arrangement of different podiums and Abou Zahra's on the far left of the stage which was littered with all kinds of grey-in-grey sets, used by the dancers for gliding and jumping and executing a variety of acrobatic movements. Though the entire mood was grey again, this time the ladies' costumes were of the loveliest crimson, adding life and colour to the show. We were entering the final phase of the "Goldberg variations": here Bach has chosen some once well-known tunes, weaving them together into an elaborate texture. Some were as naughty as the ladies' red costumes, while others were as serene as the lonely couple embracing on the stage's front line. It would be wrong to think that Bach wrote only church music: he even composed a "Coffee Cantata" for one of the weekly concerts he directed at "Zimmermann's Coffee House" in Central Leipzig, and at Christmas time he liked browsing the stalls with his wife Anna Magdalena, while being involved in the fairs, running a small music sales business. The Mannheim Ballet did not miss alluding discreetly to the secular side of Bach's life while conceiving their choreography. They succeeded splendidly in giving a new dimension to Bach's "Goldberg variations", taking them out of their ivory tower and giving them movement and life in truly great performances. photo: Sherif Sonbol
