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An Egyptian who was trained as a soprano in Berlin, who picks up the finishing touches in the La Scala studio in Milan and is chosen by the strict Peter Stein as Pamina for his “Magic Flute” production.
There is hardly more positive femininity and diversity in the classics at the moment.
No wonder that the Warner music label has secured this 30-year-old singer.
Fatma Said is supposed to shine a light in the world of classical music, which is why her debut CD is also called “El Nour”.
Fatma Said was one of the bright spots in the already gloomy Corona autumn, sang songs via stream where she was celebrated two years ago - in the Wigmore Hall, the London chamber music Mecca.
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This gently floating, but firm soprano voice sang of flowers and dreams and interpreted it confidently, inviting you to listen.
A truly flourishing program with works in six languages by 13 composers from three centuries.
She was there beautifully and seriously.
Her charm carried itself over through the computer.
Fatma Said has a lot of Teutonic discipline.
And she also learned the correct pronunciation - at the Catholic school in Cairo.
But otherwise she comes from a completely different, strictly Muslim culture.
"I am a father's daughter"
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What didn’t stop her, the curious, adventurous, from studying exactly what she wanted - opera arias and the much-loved German songs.
"I am a father's daughter," says Fatma Said.
“He can't refuse me anything.
And for once, I have to say: Fortunately, in a traditional Egyptian family, the father who is active in opposition politics is still in charge.
Because he supported my very extravagant wish for the local moral code, while the women in my relatives were appalled. "
She wants to be taken seriously as a singer and artist, not just fill in any minority quota position.
Although that would be pretty easy in the current cultural climate.
But she consciously wanted to continue studying after Scala.
She thought it wasn't finished yet.
For the time being, she preferred a free existence to the sure tempting quick commitment.
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It stands for diversity.
She knows that. Of course, opera houses and record companies also hire Fatma Said because of her appearance and her origins.
But she doesn't care.
At least when she realizes that it's very quickly about singing itself and not about completing a skin color palette.
And so she came up with a corresponding narrative for her debut album on Warner.
For Fatma Said was particularly important for the major label “being open to my repertoire suggestions.
We worked for a long time on the song sequence, which should appeal to a large audience and match my own musical tastes and preferences.
This particularly applies to our interpretations of Western and Middle Eastern music from the past.
We maintain the composer's ideas, but expand them with elements that seem to us to be consistent. "
Ravel and oriental instruments
This is the opposite of multiculturalism.
Fatma Said conjures up the lights of Spain like the penumbra of Egypt, and she takes us on an acoustic journey.
This ranges from the art song world of Maurice Ravel, who evokes the Arabian Nights as a mysterious “Shéhérazade” orientalism dream (here reduced to the piano version, which Malcolm Martineau brilliantly reproduces), to the freely arranged Egyptian song.
You hardly notice how the harmonies change, how the journey drifts from the Occident to the Orient, how the sound becomes more and more easterly, from guitar and flute to string quartet to the long flute Ney and the oriental box zither Kanun.
This really creates a trip based on notes that includes Manuel de Falla, Hector Berlioz, George Bizet and Federico García Lorca, but also Gamal Abdel-Rahim and Najib Hankash.
After all, with Oum Kulthum, Egypt has produced a unique singer who is celebrated as the Callas of the Middle East long after her death.
It is still a cult in Egypt today.
An Egyptian singer today cannot avoid this total work of art: “But Oum was always something special.
Nevertheless, I find a connection to European classical music in her.
She also sings extremely artificially, and yet it seems natural.
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Actually, Fatma Said doesn't want to be compared, just to be herself: an Egyptian soprano of the 21st century commuting between Berlin and London.
Which is also drawn to Italy again: Riccardo Muti asked her to be Zerlina in a new “Don Giovanni”.
As Corona wants.
This text is from WELT AM SONNTAG.
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Source: WELT AM SONNTAG