I
n downtown Cairo a multi-storey car
park stands in the place of the old
Khedivial Opera House. Built in the
19th century, the opera house was
a symbol of cultural prominence in
North Africa and the Middle East, but
it was also part of an urban plan that
didn’t confine itself to high art within
high walls: the surrounding Azbakiya
Park had bandstands, parades, and a
theatre where Oum Kalthoum sang
early in her career. Mona Adeeb Doss,
a teacher, recalls the atmosphere on a
cultural outing: “It was a leisurely and
relaxed affair. We enjoyed classic pieces
likeTheNutcracker.”
After the opera house burnt down
in 1971, it was almost 20 years before
a new one was rebuilt in the affluent
neighbourhood of Zamalek. These days
the required attire is more formal, with
men normally wearing shirts and ties.
Attheheightofitsculturalproduction
in the 1940s and 50s, Egyptian music
and cinema had a quasi monopoly
over the Arab entertainment area.
Oum Kalthoum was “the star of the
East”, and a favourite in all Arab coun-
tries as well as Europe. Other singers
such as Warda Al-Jazairia, “the Algerian
rose”, and Sabah Fakhri, “the legend
from Syria”, also had Egypt to thank
for their rise to fame.IDENTITY CRISIS
“In the 1940s and 1950s, there was
no difference between Egyptian and
Western cinemas, techniques, film
sets,” says Medhat El-Adl, co-founder
of the El Adl Group, one of the biggest
film production houses in Egypt. In
the 1960s, Egyptian cinema generated
about 25% of the country’s GDP.
The crisis year of 1967, however,
sent shockwaves round the Arab
world and signalled the end of Gamal
Abdel Nasser’s pan-Arabism project
and of Egypt’s creative golden age.
“Many things ended in the sixties,” says
contemporary Palestinian composer
Issa Murad. “The 1967 military defeat
[against Israel in the Six-Day War]
affected the self-confidence of Arab[s],
[their] sense of identity. [...] There was
also a backlash against the arts in Egypt
and in the Arab world, with a very strik-
ing, albeit absurd, image of Egyptians
STEPHAN ZAUBITZER/HANSLUCASThe Metro Cinema in
downtown Cairo once
boasted an interior like an
African savannah, complete
with masks and wild animals
Sophie Anmuthin Cairo83