Cairo Symphony plays Scheherazade with Nader Abbassi at the Opera on 7 November
Nader Abbassi conducts Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Aziz El Shawan's Piano Concerto, with pianist Lamis Shams, in the Main Hall on Saturday 7 November at 8pm.
The Cairo Symphony Orchestra returns to the Main Hall of the Cairo Opera House on Saturday 7 November with a programme built around stories from the East: Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, paired with the Piano Concerto by the Egyptian composer Aziz El Shawan. Nader Abbassi conducts, and the pianist Lamis Shams is the soloist. The concert starts at 8pm.
Scheherazade is one of the best-loved pieces in the orchestral repertoire. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote it in the summer of 1888 and conducted its first performance in Saint Petersburg that October. It takes its images from One Thousand and One Nights, in four movements that begin with the sea and Sinbad's ship and end with a festival in Baghdad and a ship breaking against a cliff. A solo violin, often over a harp, plays the voice of Scheherazade herself, the storyteller who keeps the king listening night after night.
The first half belongs to Aziz El Shawan, who was born in Cairo in 1916, died there in 1993 and is counted among the most important Egyptian composers of the twentieth century. His Piano Concerto was recorded in Moscow in 1968 under Aram Khachaturian. His other works include the opera Anas Al-Wugud and the ballet Isis and Osiris, so hearing his concerto next to a Russian take on the Arabian Nights makes for a neat pairing.
Nader Abbassi knows this stage well. He was artistic director and principal conductor of the Cairo Opera Orchestra from 2002 to 2011, after a conducting debut with Verdi's Aida at the Pyramids in 2002, and later led the Qatar Philharmonic. In 2021 he was musical director of the Pharaohs' Golden Parade in Cairo and of the opening of the Sphinx Road in Luxor, each with more than 1,000 musicians.
Tickets are sold on Tazkarti, the Opera House's booking site, through the Book Now link on the concert's page; the Opera has not listed prices on that page, so check them when you book. The Main Hall usually asks for smart dress at evening concerts, and the Opera House is in Zamalek on Gezira, with parking inside the grounds. The same weekend the Small Hall has the Egyptian Harp Ensemble on Friday 6 November, if you want to make a weekend of it.