10 Operas set in Egypt
One of the most successful of operas from a living composer—Philip Glass’s third major opera of over 30 so far—Akhnaten premiered in Stuttgart in 1984 and had its American premiere at Houston Grand Opera later that year. Philip considers it a culmination of a trio of biographical operas he composed: Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha (about Mahatma Ghandi), and this one, on the subject of Akhnaten, the Egyptian pharaoh known as Amenhotep IV, who ruled Egypt in the 1300s BC.
On the occasion of HGO’s 50th anniversary in 2005, I conducted a gala concert that included the funeral of Amenhotep III from Philip’s opera, and he came with his ensemble to participate in the performance of the (beautiful) scene. Philip was onstage as one of three keyboard players, and we had only one rehearsal with him, which went fine. On the break, he found me, to nervously give me three places in the five-minute piece where he needed me to cue him because, as he said with no irony at all, “I mean, Patrick…all of these repeats just sound alike to me.”
George Bizet’s Egyptian opera was a highly influential one, admired by both Mahler and Strauss: Djamileh premiered in 1872 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. This was the opera he composed before Carmen, both only shortly before his early death at 36. Bizet was a phenomenally talented musician, recognized early at the Paris Conservatory by Charles Gounod, the composer of Faust, who became his chief influence. Djamileh is a beautiful, if somewhat incomplete, opera, well worth performing in conservatories or small festivals, for it has engaging music for young voices.
One of Handel’s most performed and gorgeous scores. It has, naturally, nothing to do with actual history, though its major plot points slightly follow the Roman Civil War over which Julius Caesar presided. But the opera successfully arranges historical characters—Sesto, Achilla, Cleopatra, and Caesar—into a coherent series of scenes with some of the most glorious music Handel ever devised. Handel was always inspired by the talents of singers, and as Caesar and Cleopatra he had two of the most renowned in the history of opera: the castrato Senesino and the Italian soprano Francesca Cuzzoni. We obviously have no idea how they sounded, but based on the demands Handel wrote down for them, they must have been extraordinary; singers today covet those roles as though they were diamonds.
The opera’s libretto is by Mother Thekla (1918-2011), who was the spiritual muse of the esteemed British composer John Tavener (1944-2013). It begins on a low F-natural drone (“an eternity note,” as Tavener calls it), a reminder of the constant presence of God. Tavener did not call Mary of Egypt an opera, but an “icon in sound” during which one could contemplate Mary. Tavener composed Mary of Egypt with geometric symbolism, measuring out the numbers of notes and harmonies with mathematical precision. Tavener’s aims in music approached the unapproachable—in speaking of Mary of Egypt, he said he was always aware, in composition, of the “inexplicable unknowable awesome beauty of God.” The historical Mary of Egypt is contested, and thought by many to have been conflated with Mary Magdalene, though they did not live at the same time. In a future season, HGO will present the U.S. premiere of Tavener’s final opera, Krishna.
Rossini composed this Italian opera in 1818, as well as the subsequent French version of it, Moïse et Pharaon (Moses and Pharaoh), nearly a decade later, in 1827. He considered Moïse et Pharaon to be his finest opera, and in the 1820s, the public agreed. They flocked to see and hear the parting of the Red Sea that ends the opera. Rossini was a classicist, closer in style to the composers who preceded him than he was connected to those who followed him. He thought opera was headed in the wrong direction, too focused on frivolous things, so he stopped after his glorious William Tell and retired in Paris, becoming the city’s most desired salon invitation.
Arnold Schoenberg’s magnum opus, based on the Book of Genesis, remained uncompleted at the time of the composer’s death in 1951. He left out the second “a” in “Aaron” because he suffered from severe triskaidekaphobia, a fear of the number 13, and that repetitious “a” would have given the title 13 letters. Schoenberg was one of the most influential composers in music’s history for many reasons, but chiefly for founding the Second Viennese School, a group of composers devoted to taking music into its post-Wagnerian future. World history had other ideas, saddling humanity with two worldwide wars in the first half of the twentieth century, splintering music forever, and sending Schoenberg far from his Viennese home to Brentwood, Los Angeles, where he died. Schoenberg’s opera is a masterpiece of dazzling depth, though rarely performed.
Jules Massenet composed 30-plus operas, of which this was one of his last, and it premiered in Monte-Carlo two years after his death in 1912. Here in the 21st century, only Manon and Werther are ever performed of Massenet’s operas, save an occasional dabbling into Cendrillon, his beautiful version of Cinderella, and Chérubin, a bon-bon he composed for the Scottish-American soprano Mary Garden that imagines the life of Mozart’s Cherubino (well, first he was Beaumarchais’s Cherubino!) after the events of The Marriage of Figaro. The opera is lovely, actually, if very much within the standards and feelings of its time. You are very unlikely to ever see it programmed.
Massenet’s other opera that occasionally sees the light of day. The title role was composed for Sibyl Sanderson, and prized by star sopranos ever since, most recently Renée Fleming and Ailyn Pérez. Thaïs served as the Scottish-American soprano Mary Garden’s American debut in 1907, and Garden and Sanderson figure heavily in the long history of opera. Sanderson (1864-1903) was a native of Sacramento, California who found enormous success on the operatic stages of Paris, and was clearly an incredible singer. Mary Garden was a worldwide phenomenon in her time: the first Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, then she became a movie star, and eventually was a talent scout for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood.
Premiered in 1824 in Turin, a phenomenal success in its time, this opera was written by a composer thought at that moment to be on the level of Beethoven, Saverio Mercadante. He composed an unimaginable 57 operas, and he was revered by his contemporaries. Franz Liszt thought him to be the finest Italian composer, beyond Verdi. History had different ideas. Mercadante always comes to mind when we try to excessively analyze new operas today, as we have historically been extremely bad at predicting what will and won’t last.
This bizarre opera—by the creators of Der Rosenkavalier, composer Richard Strauss and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal—premiered in 1928 in Dresden. It doesn’t quite qualify as being set in Egypt, though it could be set anywhere in the ancient world. It tells a very particular version of the mythic Helen of Troy, and combines characters from other Greek myths into its incomprehensible and impenetrable story. If anyone is ever able to make sense of the character of the “Omniscient Mussel” (a singing bivalve, really?) then perhaps The Egyptian Helen will find a place in an audience’s heart.
