CAIRO - LE Nozze di Figaro, ossia la Folle Giornata (The Marriage of Figaro, or the Day of Madness), K.492, an opera buffa (comic opera) composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, has been selected as the opening performance of the Cairo Opera House's new season, which will run till June 2011. Despite being a good choice, the Arabic translation has ruined it, much to the chagrin of the fans of Mozart. Based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La Folle Journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro (1784), it might seem acceptable to anyone hearing it for the first time, having never listened to its Italian beautiful songs and Mozart's wonderful composing. Why translate it into Arabic in the first place? A lot of effort has gone into this opera, in terms of directing, music, performance and the singers trying very hard to make it just perfect, and this is what I would like to talk about this week. The Marriage of Figaro is a comedy, embodying social satire that proved revolutionary at the time. It is a sequel to The Barber of Seville (Il Barbieri di Siviglia), written by Gioachino Rossini , although Mozart and Rossini had nothing to do with each other. The playwright Beaumarchais wrote both stories as plays. Mozart picked up The Marriage of Figaro and Rossini The Barber of Seville. Da Ponte has kept most of the complicated parts of Beaumarchais' satirical comedy. Mozart for his part, despite working within the format limitations of the old opera comedy, brilliantly managed to reflect the mood of the characters and the intrigue, with music as enchanting as ever. It was first premiered at the Royal Palace in Vienna on May 1, 1886. It was Ali Sadeq, who translated the script from English into Arabic and it premiered at the Cairo Opera House in March 1991. The Marriage of Figaro recounts a single ‘day of madness' (la folle giornata) in the palace of theCount Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; Dr Bartolo wants to get his revenge on Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself; and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of Barber into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. Having gratefully given Figaro a job as head of his servant-staff, he is now persistently trying to obtain the favours of Figaro's bride-to-be, Suzanna. He keeps finding excuses to delay the civil part of the wedding of his two servants, which is arranged for this very day. Figaro, Suzanna, and the Countess conspire to embarrass the Count and expose his scheming. He responds by trying to legally compel Figaro to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, but it turns out at the last minute that she really is his mother. Through Figaro's and Suzanna's clever manipulations, the Count's love for his Countess is finally restored. Meanwhile, the performance was skilfully conducted by Nader Abbasi.It started with fast-tempo music, full of motion and joy, paving the way for the incidents that take place in one day. The orchestra played the two melodies wonderfully, accompanied by the incidents and songs which characterise this opera. The brass wind instruments were wonderful, as was Craig Martin on the harpsichord. The performance made you feel that you were back in the second half of the eighteenth century, helped by the very appropriate décor, costumes and lighting But unfortunately the beautiful Arabic language needs a special kind of music, so the great effortsmade by the conductor and his orchestra were in vain. The acting of the singers was marvellous, thanks to director Abdullah Saad, who was able to maintain the comic spirit. Their acting was better than the words and lyrics the audience strained to understand, uttered by the sopranos and the mezzosopranos. Figaro, Count Almaviva and Bartolo were played by the baritones, Moustafa Mohamed and Ilhami Hussein, Reda el-Wakeel, (the Count) and Abdel-Wahab el-Sayyed (Bartolo). Their voice level (bass-baritone) was better suited to the Arabic language than the other voice levels. It was great to soprano Tahiya Shams Eddin come back after a long absence. She and Mona Rafla played the role of Suzanna. The both did their best in a role characterised by a lot of bodily movement, acting and expressions. As for the Countess, she was played by the unique Neveen Alouba and Jihan Fayyed. Both played the miserable wife with the cheating husband very well. There were many other superstars in this opera, including the mezzosopranos Jihan el-Nasser and Hala el-Shabouri; tenors Hani el-Shafei, Tamer Tawfiq and Ibrahim Nagui; baritone Ramez Labbad; bass-baritone Emad Adel; and the young sopranos Ingi Mohsen, Nada Hassan and Yemen Yazeed. The opera needs a lot of characters, allowing us to see lots of superstars. What also compensated for the bad and unnecessary Arabic translation were the Cairo Opera House chorus and the ballet troupe. I dearly hope this opera gets performed in the original Italian language next time. [email protected]
