CSO NOVEMBER 2019 Issue 3

CSO November 2019

Newsletter

KHEDIVIAL OPERA HOUSE, CAIRO 1869 IN THIS ISSUE

150 years of Opera in Egypt and Leoncavallo centennial

November 2019 has 2 unique Khedivial Opera House on 24 occasions: the first is National December 1871. with the celebration of 150th In the early morning hours of 28 birthday of the first opera house October 1971, the opera house not only in Egypt but in Africa and burned to the ground. Cairo has the whole middle-east. waited till 1988 to benefit from a The second is quite international Japanese grant to inaugurate the th as it is Ruggiero Leoncavallo 100 actual opera house.. death anniversary. Rasha Talaat CSO is celebrating this unique Soprano th 150th Opera Birthday occasion on the 14 with highlights from Rigoletto, La The opera house was built on the Traviata, Un Ballo in Maschera, orders of the Khedive Ismail to Carmen, Thais etc.. featuring celebrate the opening of Suez Sopranos Iman Mostafa, Dalia Canal. Verdi's opera Rigoletto Farouk, Rasha Talaat, Mezzos was the first opera performed at Jolie Faizy, Amina Khairat, the opera house on 1 November Tenors Amr Medhat, Hisham El 1869. Ismail planned a grander Guindy, Tamer Tewfik and exhibition for his new theatre. Baritones Mostafa Mohamed, After months of delay due to the Ezzat Ghanem accompanied by Mostafa Mohamed Baritone outbreak of the Franco-Prussian A Cappella choir. Music Director War, Verdi's new opera, Aida, Ahmed El Saedi will conduct. received its world premiere at the CSO NOVEMBER 2019 | Issue 3 2

I Pagliacci: La commedia è finita! A unique Experience

th On the 15 CSO celebrates the situational comedy of Commedia. THE SOLOISTS centennial of the great verismo Nevertheless, the Commedia composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo. characters are mirrors of many of Although he is of course Italian, the less comfortable he is still related to Egypt since he predicaments of human life: illicit worked for 3 years as a piano love, the sting of unrequited teacher and pianist to the brother desire in old age, servants of Khedive Tewfik Pasha! outwitting masters and Pagliacci is a masterpiece that opportunistic charm seducing grows from the enduring vibrancy those with wealth and power. of the theatrical tradition, However, in the world of Commedia dell’Arte, which had Commedia, these all too human its defining period in the 16th and discomforts are contained within 17th centuries. It was theatre of the two dimensional perspective Renata Vari of the mask, rhetorical practice Soprano convention played by absolute professionals, with a line-up of and formulae, and the lazzi or standard characters such as comic turns – which hold a benign Arlecchino, Colombina, mirror up to nature – through Pulchinello, Capitano, Servetta which the audience can see at a and the Zanni figures who safe distance the pains of being rendered improvised text. The human and laugh at them as a influence of Commedia on Italian cathartic experience. The clown opera is profound, its traditions somehow heals our sorrow animating many Italian through sharing it and composers during the 17th and demonstrating its lurking absurd potentials. 18th centuries and persisting into Our concert performance cast the early 19th century. The genius includes Gianni Leccese as the Gianni Leccese of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci is in its Tenor stated ambition to abandon the unhappy clown; Renata Vari as “vecchie usanze”, the old customs his young wife, Nedda; Francesco of Commedia, and to make a Baiocchi as her lover, Silvio; theatre based on “truth” – real Federico Buttazzo as Beppo, her passions as opposed to stylised stage lover in the play-within-a- archetypes. These real passions play, and Gabriel Manro as the are explored in the opera plot in hunchback Tonio, whose the context of those formal unrequited declaration of love archetypes via the “play within a precipitates the tragedy. play” and finally break free of The concert, organized in them to make a gesture based on collaboration with the Italian the hyper-reality of the passions. Cultural Institute in Cairo, is In the end, they defy the formal conducted by maestro Fillipo Gabriel Manro conventions and break free from Arlia with A Cappella Choir under Baritone

the formal constraints of the Maya Gvineria. CSO NOVEMBER 2019 | Issue 3 3

Romantic Flair

A unique concert in Cairo on the 30th will feature famous American pianist Alexander Frey under the baton of maestro Ahmed El Saedi. It may come as a disappointment to some of us to learn that the theme of Brahms's Variations on a theme by Haydn is not by Haydn at all. It is a joyful, poised work, unpretentious and skillfully star of its composer. From its Symphony at his summer retreat wrought, in which the purity and instantly recognizable opening in celebration of his admission to grace of Haydn’s Classical style whine in the clarinet through its the Prague Academy. The (which the tradition-oriented brilliant finale, Rhapsody in Blue composer wanted to produce “a Brahms continued, in his own epitomizes the Gershwin sound work which is different from the way), blend seamlessly with the and instantly transformed the 25- other symphonies, with individual warmth of feeling and sound year-old songwriter into a ideas worked out in a new way.” favored by Brahms and his composer of “serious” music. With its cheerful and optimistic Romantic contemporaries. The end, we shall notice that this presentation of the solemn, If we compare Dvorák's Eighth masterwork is unique and a almost march-like theme retains Symphony (1889) to some of the perfect conclusion to the gala. the field-partita’s wind-based great symphonic works written texture, with pizzicato strings around the same time, the added. Eight compact, enjoyably difference will become readily diverse variations follow. The apparent. In the previous year, CSO boisterous Variation 6 has the 1888, Tchaikovsky completed his November character of a hunt, with horns Fifth (E minor), in which he was firmly to the fore. The finale is a grappling with grave questions 2019 stirring passacaglia, a miniature about Fate and human life. The set of variations within the larger same year, César Franck variations. The theme returns at introduced his Symphony in D the close, in full orchestral dress minor, whose complex emotional and triumphant mode journey leads from self-doubt to George Gershwin considered jazz eventual triumph. Johannes as the voice of the American soul. Brahms finished his fourth and Rhapsody in Blue occupies a last symphony (E minor) just a few years earlier (1885) with a special place in American music: Newsletter it introduced jazz to classical magnificent passacaglia that concert audiences, and infused that Baroque variation simultaneously made an instant form with genuine Romantic passion. Dvorák composed this