A Night at the Opera

Two weeks ago, I joined several friends, including Little One and Adelpha, for an evening of culture, music, and dance. The Cairo Opera Company was staging the famous opera Aida and, we were told, there were still tickets available. Although Hubby was unable to go (he was busy with elective open heart surgery, exams, and washing his hair) I was thrilled to be included.

The chance to see an opera about Egypt, that was first performed in Egypt, while I was living in Egypt was too much to pass up. So that Tuesday night we all got dolled up and set out for the theatre. I was surprised to hear there were so many seats available for what I felt was an rare cultural opportunity.

Cribbing from the notes in the program a little, Aida is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi (Rigoletto, La Traviata,) with an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. This opera was first performed here in Cairo at the Khedivial Opera House on December 24, 1871. That opera house was later turned into a parking lot but the new one is lovely and more than up to the task of staging this revival.

Verdi’s opera tells the tragic story of Aida, an Ethiopian princess, who is captured and made a slave in Egypt. She falls in love with Radames, a military commander, who struggles to choose between his love for Aida and his loyalty to the Pharaoh. Since love is never any fun unless three people are involved, the Pharaoh’s daughter Amneris is also in love with Radames who doesn’t exactly return her feelings.

Before I go into the negatives of the night, let me first mention the things I loved. Despite amusing details like the Colossus of Memnon being on the banks of the Nile, the sets were flat out amazing. The costumes were equally sumptuous if slightly ill tailored for some of the performers.

The symphony was fantastic and truly shone during Aida’s famous Triumphal March. I don’t think I was the only one humming along to this majestic piece of orchestration.

The soprano who sang the part of Aida, Julie Karagouni, was fantastic. I have read reviews that indicated that her Typ0-esque size deterred from people’s ability to see her as the heroine, and I have to disagree with those narrow minded people. The singer’s voice was exquisite and she was one of the few people up there trying to act.

Which brings us to some of the not-so-good parts of this almost amateurish production. There was the crew who could be seen running around backstage; the rather unimpressive tenor, Walid Korayem, who played the hero, Radames; and the initially disappointing performance of Amneris. The latter was swapped out in the final act due to health concerns and replaced by a fantastic singer named Dragana del Monaco.

As Little One noted, Egypt isn’t exactly famous for its male ballet dancers, which must be why the choreographer seemed to give the men very basic steps or strength work to perform. I love ballet and was greatly disappointed by the choreography in general.

Despite the uneven performances, I had a fabulous time out with my friends. Attending the opera is something everyone should do at least once. You may not like it in the end, but at least you can say you tried. That said, I guarantee that if you try it at least once, the thrill that goes through you when a great soprano holds an impossible note for an impossibly long time will stay with you forever.

All of which brings us to the biggest “Oh my God is that what I think it is” moment of the evening. Since I think it deserves more than just a paragraph, you’ll have to check back tomorrow to read about the moment that left everyone scratching their heads.

(I should note that none of today’s photos were taken by me since cameras are verboten in the theatre. That, naturally, must be why we heard cameras going off almost constantly during the performance. But given my history with forbidden photography, I decided not to risk taking my own camera out. Sorry!)