Arab opera singers who have made it to the particularly demanding
and challenging international classical music scene are only a handful. Young
Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, born in 1991 in Cairo, certainly belongs in this
exclusive group. From performing at Milan’s celebrated Teatro alla Scala to
becoming a Warner exclusive recording artist, Said has confirmed that she is a
true global opera star.
اضافة اعلان
I discovered
Said when, last week, my sister sent me the link to a Youtube video that
featured the singer joining Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński in the
superb, sublime motet “Laetatus sum, Rogate”, by Bohemian baroque composer Jan
Dismas Zelenka. I have since found and listened to several other pieces sung by
Said, but this motet remains my favorite to date. Perhaps it is because of my
weakness for baroque music, but for sure because of the exceptional beauty of
the two artists’ voices that blend like magic.
Also found on
Youtube is Fatma Said’s duet, back in 2018, with Mexican tenor Rolando
Villazón, interpreting “Papageno Papagena” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute opera
at the Lucerne festival in Switzerland. Far from the serenity and majesty of
the previous baroque composition, this dynamic, uplifting, and joyful piece
enables Said to demonstrate her excellent stage presence: she is witty,
natural, real, lively, and perfectly comfortable with the music she chooses to
interpret.
After watching
the above two videos on Youtube, and having had a good visual impression of the
artist, I moved to Spotify, the audio streaming platform, where I was able to
listen to the same music, without the image part of course, but this time in
high-definition audio. It is even more elating there. All the fine details of
the music, all the tonal subtlety of Said’s voice are perceptible, making the
experience even more pleasant. If you like and appreciate great classical
music, high-definition sound really takes you to another world.
This Egyptian
artist possesses a very balanced voice, be it in the tone itself or in the way
she delivers the music. Soprano is the highest range in the female voices;
singing high-pitched notes while keeping the tone warm is an art that not all
opera singers master. Said does, and she does it very well. Melisma, “the
singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different
notes” (Wikipedia), is also particularly well handled by the singer. Her
renditions are elegant and charming.
Said does not
just sing duets with other singers; her debut album “El Nour” (“The Light”)
brings us a wide and exquisite palette of songs and tunes. The selection also
shows her refined taste and her desire to cover various styles, genres, and
periods.
The album
consists of pieces by French composers Maurice Ravel, Philippe Gaubert, Georges
Bizet and Hector Berlioz, by Spaniards Manuel de Falla, Federico García Lorca,
Jose Serrano and Fernando Obradors, as well as by Arab musicians Gamal Abdel
Rahim, Najib Hankash, Sayed Darwish, Elias Rahbani and Dawood Husni.
Said excels in
all the tracks of the album, from both technical and artistic points of view.
It is difficult to encompass the music itself in once concept, given the wide
gap between, for example, Ravel’s works on the one hand, and the adaptation of
the Arabic pieces on the other. For the listener, there is a significant break
of style that is not bad per se, but is not easy to follow and grasp. Perhaps
there should have been a clear split among genres; perhaps the Arabic pieces
should have been released in a separate album.
Ravel’s pieces,
from the early 20th century, were avant-garde classical compositions. The music
by the Spanish composers featured on “El Nour” is different, more lyrical
maybe, but it still goes well with the French composers’ works. It is European
classical music, after all. The Arabic pieces do not blend so well with the
rest, mainly because the original spirit is partially lost, and also because
although they all are well known and beautiful, they are not classical pieces
in the first place, but popular songs.
“Aatini Al Naya
Wa Ghanni” (give me the flute and sing), for instance, is less convincing than
the more known versions, that of Lebanese diva Fairuz for one, as irrelevant as
the comparison between the two artists may be.
But again, it is mainly because of the special orchestral arrangements
made here, and not because of the soprano’s singing, which remains immaculate
all the time, on all tracks.
“El Nour” is
available on Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer streaming platforms, in addition
to the physical CD format.
Accompanying
Said on the album’s recording are Malcolm Martineau on piano, Rafael Aguirre on
guitar, Burcu Karadağ on nay, Tim Allhoff on piano, Itamar Doari on percussion,
Henning Sieverts on double bass, Tamer Pinarbasi on qanun, and the Vision
String Quartet.
The writer is a computer engineer and a
classically trained pianist and guitarist. He has been regularly writing IT
articles, reviewing music albums, and covering concerts for more than 30 years.
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