The history of opera in the Arabic-speaking world is generally viewed to have started from the premiere of Verdi's Aida in Cairo at the Khedivial Opera House in 1871, though Verdi's opera was sung in Italian.
The history of opera in the Arabic-speaking world is generally viewed to have started from the premiere of Verdi's Aida in Cairo at the Khedivial Opera House in 1871, though Verdi's opera was sung in Italian.
Ratiba El-Hefny sung the title role in Cairo in Lehár's The Merry Widow in Arabic in 1961. [1] [2] This was followed by Verdi's La traviata in Arabic in 1964 and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice in 1970. This era ended with the 1971 fire at the Khedivial Opera House. [3]
On March 6, 2008, at the 8th Al-Ain Classical Music Festival at Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates, Polish opera director Ryszard Peryt directed Egyptian musicologist Aly Sadek's translation of Mozart's Don Giovanni, as performed by soloists, the choir of the Université Antonine, Baabda, Lebanon, and the Warsaw Philharmonic's Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Zbigniew Graca. The project planned to present other Mozart opera in the Arabic language, e.g. The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute and record on the Opera in Arabic label. [4]
The first opera in Arabic may be that of the Lebanese composer Wadia Sabra, whose opera The Two Kings to a libretto by Father Marun Ghusn, was premiered in Beirut in 1927 but has since been lost.
Egyptian composer Aziz El-Shawan's Antar (1948, based on the life of Antarah ibn Shaddad) and Anas el-Wugood (1970) are on historical themes as are his countrymen Sayed Awad's The Death of Cleopatra, based on the epic poem by Ahmed Shawqi, and Kamel El-Remali's opera Hassan El-Basri, based on the life of Hassan El-Basri.
Modern Egyptian composer, conductor and Director of Damanhour Opera House in Cairo, Sherif Mohie El Din, has written a couple of operas. Miramar first opened in Cairo in 2005, with libretto by renowned poet Sayed Hegab after Naguib Mahfouz's novel of the same name.
Dutch composer Michiel Borstlap was commissioned by the Emir of Qatar to write the opera Ibn Sina, based on the life of Avicenna, performed in Qatar in 2003. [5]
Dream She Is, an Arabic opera monodrama for woman's voice (sung by Fadia Tomb El Hage), has been composed in 2008 by Joelle Khoury, a Lebanese composer. First played in Beirut by the Belgian chamber orchestra "Fragments ensemble", it was also performed May 4, 2012, at Esterházy Palace, Eisenstadt, Austria, by Kremerata Baltica (founded by Gidon Kremer in 1997) and in Switzerland, by TaG ensemble. [6]
Among composers of art song in Arabic, Hiba Al Kawas has not composed a full opera in Arabic, but her cycle of five instrumental and three song pieces Rou'ia Fi Maa received its première at the Opéra Bastille in Paris in 2007.
In July 2009, Daniel Barenboim's Youth Orchestra in Ramallah produced the opera The Sultana of Cadiz (later renamed to Die arabische Prinzessin), based on a pasticcio of music by Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga to a new libretto by Paula Fünfeck after an Arabic fairy tale at Ramallah's Cultural Palace. The opera was commissioned and conducted by Anne-Sophie Brüning of the Barenboim-Said Foundation. [7]
Lebanese composer Iyad Kanaan (1971) composed an opera in three acts entitled Qadmus to an Arabic libretto by Said Akl.
The new Cairo Opera House (1988), Damascus Opera House (2004), Dubai Opera (2016), and the Qatar Opera House are multipurpose arts venues. In April 2010, Reuters reported that China will spend $40 million to build a 1,400-seat opera house in Algiers.
Aida is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini. Today the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world; at New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, Aida has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886. Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, but Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz argues that the source is actually Temistocle Solera.
Juan Crisóstomo Jacobo Antonio de Arriaga y Balzola was a Spanish Basque composer. He was nicknamed "the Spanish Mozart" after he died, because, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he was both a child prodigy and an accomplished composer who died young. They also shared the same first and second baptismal names; and they shared the same birthday, 27 January.
A soubrette is a type of operatic soprano voice fach, often cast as a female stock character in opera and theatre. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means "conceited" or "coy". A soubrette is also defined as a young woman regarded as flirtatious or frivolous.
Ahmed Shawqi, nicknamed the Prince of Poets, was an Arabic poet laureate, to the Arabic literary tradition.
The Khedivial Opera House or Royal Opera House was an opera house in Cairo, Egypt, the oldest opera house in all of Africa. It was inaugurated on 1 November 1869 and burned down on 28 October 1971.
The Cairo Opera House, part of Cairo's National Cultural Centre, is the main performing arts venue in the Egyptian capital. Home to most of Egypt's finest musical groups, it is located on the southern portion of Gezira Island in the Nile River, in the Zamalek district near downtown Cairo.
Jannat Mahid, known by her stage name Jannat ; is a Moroccan-Egyptian singer. She was born in Morocco and presently living and performing in Egypt. Jannat sings in Egyptian Arabic. She is one of the most prominent young female singers in the Arab world. Jannat participated for the first time in a singing competition in Morocco entitled "Stars of Tomorrow" when she reached the age of eight. She stood on stage accompanied by a musical band and won the first prize. After that, she participation in local singing competitions. Upon reaching the age of fifteen, she participated in the Dubai Nights Festival and won the award for best singing voice in the Arab world in 2000. After that, she received an invitation from Mrs. Ratiba El-Hefny, ddirector of the Cairo Opera House, to participate in a concert in the Grand Theater, and that was the first time that she stood in front of the Egyptian public.
Harry Alfred Robert Kupfer was a German opera director and academic. A long-time director at the Komische Oper Berlin, he worked at major opera houses and at festivals internationally. Trained by Walter Felsenstein, he worked in the tradition of realistic directing. At the Bayreuth Festival, he staged Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer in 1978 and Der Ring des Nibelungen in 1988. At the Salzburg Festival, he directed the premiere of Penderecki's Die schwarze Maske in 1986 and Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss in 2014.
Italians in Egypt, also referred to as Italian Egyptians, are a community with a history that goes back to Roman times.
The Cairo Symphony Orchestra,, is an orchestra based in Cairo, Egypt. It was founded in 1959 by its first music director and conductor, Franz Litschauer. Its current principal conductor is Ahmed El Saedi.
Lois Jeanette McDonall is a Canadian operatic soprano, especially known for her performances in the operas of Mozart and Donizetti.
Ratiba Hefny was an Egyptian and an international Opera singer (Soprano) who has performed in more than 500 opera performances. She was the dean of the Higher Institute of Arabic Music in Cairo. She became the director of the Cairo Opera House in 1988.
Antoine Kaldas(Arabic: طوني قلدس, ; born January 20, 1984), known professionally as Tony Kaldas, is an Egyptian-Greek singer, composer, performer, and healer who had spent his first 25 years in Egypt.
Nayer Nagui is an Egyptian composer, conductor, musical director and pianist. Educated in Egypt, London and Paris, he has led orchestras internationally and frequently conducts the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, among the youngest orchestral directors in Egypt. He is also the musical director of the Cairo Celebration Choir, which he founded.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Cairo, Egypt.
The Cairo Opera Ballet Company is the resident ballet company of the Cairo Opera House and a ballet school affiliated to Egypt's Higher Institute of Ballet. Its foundation began in 1958 during the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser through the efforts of Tharwat Okasha, Egypt's culture minister at the time, and Leonid Lavrovsky, the former artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, who took a group of Egyptian dancers to Russia for two years of training. At the time of its founding, it was the only Arab resident classical ballet company in the Middle East. The Company director was Enayat Azmi.
Nabila M. Erian is a professor of vocal sciences at the Cairo Conservatoire, Academy of Arts. Her career as a leading soprano opera singer debuted in 1960. She is also an expert on the history of Coptic music. Her latest research revolves around the continuity between the current practiced Coptic music and the Ancient Egyptian tradition. Erian advocates for the construction of a new modern state of the arts opera house at the New Cairo Administrative Capital.
Les Petits Chats was a well-known Egyptian rock band from Cairo that was formed in the 1960s. It was founded by Wagdi Francis. The group has an important place in the history of Egyptian rock music.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Cairo:
The 2021 Arab Women's Cup was the second edition of the Arab Women's Cup for national women's football teams affiliated with the Union of Arab Football Associations (UAFA). The tournament was hosted by Egypt between 24 August and 6 September 2021.