THE recent production of opera ‘Carmen' at the main hall of Cairo Opera House is one of the most important artistic events in this season. Not only does it enrich the repertoire of Cairo Opera Company, but it also gives a chance to a new generation of opera artists and technicians to reveal their talents. The popularity of this opera attracted a huge number of audiences and made this production an undisputable success. Cairo Opera Company used to present Italian operas, and it was only in the past few years this tradition has started to change. The new production of ‘Carmen' represents the third French opera produced by the Egyptian company after the successful productions of the operas ‘Thaïs' by Massenet, ‘Lakmé' by Léo Delibes, and ‘Les Pêcheurs de Perles' (The Pearl Fishers) by Bizet. Opera ‘Carmen' was presented in Egypt in 1992, but the production relied heavily on foreign artists with a marginal Egyptian participation. This time it was presented exclusively by Egyptian artists except for three foreign singers who alternated roles with Egyptian artists. The stage director was Abdel Moneim Kamel, who directed this work for the first time. Noticeably, he relied on ballet at the expense of other elements in order to evoke the Spanish atmosphere. Ballet was his main dramatic tool, which he principally used throughout the opera discarding the roles of the characters, and especially Carmen herself. She was presented as if she were a lady from the Baroque times and not a gipsy Spanish woman. The dramatic and expressive roles of the characters were conveyed by ballet dancers instead. Nevertheless, the use of symbols was generally more successful. This was clear in expressing the idea of destiny by the dances of a girl in black. Her dance accompanied the sad melody expressing the main drama of the opera, i.e. Carmen's death at the hands of her lover Don José. The most innovative part of this production was Mahmoud Haggag's set designs. He employed a considerable degree of abstraction and managed to benefit from the advanced technologies of the Main Hall. Although the costumes were designed decently, they were too dark in the first act, which did not fit the general cheerful and vivid spirit of that act. Both Cairo Opera Orchestra and its conductor Nader Abbassi presented this opera for the first time. His conducting of this work should be applauded for he could accentuate the dramatic climaxes of the work. Few times, however, the required balance between the orchestral sounds and the vocal performance of the singers was not successfully realised. The two divas who played alternatively the role of Carmen were the Serbian mezzo-soprano Dragana Del Monaco, and the Egyptian Jolie Faizy. The latter was a great discovery for it is rare to have an Egyptian mezzo-soprano who has the qualification of being an opera star. Her training was of very good quality. This was distinctive in her clear pronunciation of the French text. Her performance, however, had a clear Italian tinge, with less understanding of Carmen's gipsy character. The rest of Cairo Opera Company stars entertained the audience with their performance and helped a number of new singers. This production brought back the talented executive director Mohamed Abul Khair, who had been known as an opera singer before he devoted himself completely to opera stage direction. On the other hand, the choir was one of the elements that made this production a real success. This is notably due to the high-quality training and rehearsals at the hands of the choir master Aldo Maniato and Maya Givinira on the one hand, and Dr Nadia Abdel Aziz the supervisor of the children choir on the other. Notwithstanding the above critical remarks, this successful production of opera ‘Carmen' is a great step, which we hope will be followed by even more steps in this direction. ([email protected])
