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It’s been 14 months under translation but now the UAE will host the Arabian Gulf’s first Arabic performance of the operatic masterpiece Don Giovanni. Masterminded by Egyptian Dr Aly Sadek, tonight’s performance will be the curtain raiser for the biggest Al Ain Classical Music Festival to date.
When the curtain goes up on the opera at the Al Ain Municipality Theatre, it will be an apt opening to an
eight-year-old annual festival which is also set to enter a new era.
Dedicated Translation
It will be sung by a septet from Lebanon and Egypt to the magnificent Mozart score performed by the 63-strong Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, and the evening will also be the culmination of 14 months of dedicated translation by Sadek , a Cairene anaesthetist with a passion for opera.
The task of translating the famous lyrics of libretto Lorenzo da Ponte from the original Italian may seem to the uninitiated as one of mammoth and arduous dimensions, and while that may be true, for Sadek, it was also something of a labour of love.
Same Humour
“The two languages share some commonalities,” explained Sadek, a holder of the Mozart Medal, an honour bestowed by Vienna’s Mozart society. “The humour translates nicelybecause the Italians and Arabs share a common sense of humour, after all, they are not too far away geographically.
“The Arabic also lends itself nicely to being adapted to opera. It is quite a musical language, as you can
hear during the call to prayer from mosques around the Arab world.”
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