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Snowflakes on the Nile Cairo
Opera House
12/25/2025 - & December 26, 27, 28, 29, 2025
The Nutcracker
Lev Ivanov, Vasili Vainonen, Abdel Moneim Kamel (choreography), Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (music)
Cairo Opera Ballet Company, Erminia Kamel (artistic director)
Cairo Opera Orchestra, Mohamed Saad Basha (conductor)
Lev Solodovnikov, Mohamed El Gharabawy (sets & costumes),Yasser Shaalan (lights)
Throughout much of the world, the festive season means time off work and school, Christmas trees, family time, crowded markets and frenzied shopping. Musically, it’s accompanied by the strains of Handel’s Messiah and Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Though not part of the European continent, and only 10‑15% Christian (and mostly Eastern Orthodox at that), in Egypt, with its population of 119 million, the festive season is welcomed with unabated enthusiasm. For those in Cairo, the country’s capital of 23 million inhabitants, Christmas has long been associated with The Nutcracker.
European influence in Egypt has grown considerably ever since Napoleon’s brief invasion of the country (1798‑1801) in a ploy to hinder Britain’s influence and block the shortest route to the British Empire’s crown jewel, India. This brief French invasion caused an abrupt shock in the Egyptian psyche, the first foreign incursion since the Crusaders, save for the Ottoman Turks in 1516‑17. It awakened a deep curiosity for the West and informed Egyptians of the West’s military superiority as well as their advances in science and medicine. This awakening by the French was effectively Egypt’s baptism into modernity.
Mehmet Ali (1769 1849), an ethnic Albanian from Thrace (present day Northern Greece), seized power in 1805, becoming the founder of a dynasty that ruled until Nasser’s military coup in 1952, embarking on an intense modernization campaign. Ali aimed to transform Egypt into a developed European state, introducing crops suited to the climate, including cotton which became Egypt’s main export. This was an especially strong export during the United States’s Civil War, when supplies of cotton from The South became scarce. Ali built roads, bridges and a railway system. His offspring continued the dream with the construction of the Suez Canal, enabling maritime traffic to shorten distances between Asia and Europe, thereby avoiding the need to sail around the coast of Africa. Through the massive immigration of Greeks, Italians, Syrians, Lebanese, Armenians, Maltese, French and other West Europeans, Cairo and Alexandria were added to the world’s list of cosmopolitan cities.
Moreover, the elite Francophile ruling dynasty infused their culture into Egyptian society, instilling an appetite for opera, ballet and the symphonic orchestral repertoire. Until the establishment of the Cairo Opera Ballet Company in 1966 during the heyday of Soviet‑Egyptian collaboration and the nationalist rule of Gamal Abd El Nasser (1918‑1970), touring European companies were presented at Cairo’s Opera House, inaugurated in 1871 with the world premiere of Aida. Thanks to a close collaboration with the USSR, a strong ballet tradition was established here by Russian pedagogues. Despite Egypt’s volte‑face under Sadat in the 1970s and the 1990 dissolution of the USSR, the tradition continues. In fact, even today, ballet performances in Cairo sell out faster than opera or symphonic fare.
The Nutcracker story is based on a French adaptation of Nußknacker und Mausekönig by German writer Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1766‑1822). The adaptation by Alexandre Dumas père, Histoire d’un casse‑noisette (1844) introduced a major twist; its fairytale atmosphere and the famous exotic dances in the Land of Sweets. Another twist was the symbolism in the story; Clara’s dream involving the toy nutcracker transforming into a Prince who takes Clara to the Land of Sweets represents a young adolescent child’s dream of becoming an adult. More than most other productions I’ve seen, the “growing up” theme characterizes the present production. This is again noted at the conclusion, when young‑woman Clara reverts to child-Clara under the dark cloak of her godfather, the magician Drosselmeyer.
The setting of the ballet is the family home of the Stahlbaum family, who are hosting a Christmas party. Their children, Clara and Fritz, receive copious gifts from the guests. Most enticing are those from the children’s godfather Drosselmeyer, a toy maker and a magician. Fritz breaks one of the gifts, a nutcracker, and the toy maker promises to fix it. The dancer interpreting Drosselmeyer conveyed the avuncular and kind nature of the toymaker but none of his frightening side, prominent in Hoffmann’s original tale but less so in Dumas’s adaptation. Avuncular he may have acted but amusingly this Drosselmeyer was and looked extremely young, barely ten years older than the child Clara.
When Clara falls asleep, we’re transported to a fantasy world. The transition to this dream world is indicated by a Christmas tree in the centre of the Stahlbaum home, which grows to a huge size. The nutcracker transforms into a Prince, who fights the Mouse King. Fritz’s toy soldiers become the Prince’s army that combat an army of mice that spring from under the floorboards. Clara helps the Prince kill the Mouse King. The first act ends with Clara and the Prince journeying through a pine forest under the snow.
In Act II, we’re in the Land of Sweets, where we enjoy the various sweets and spices through dances from their land of origin: Danse espagnole for chocolate (via the Americas); Danse arabe for coffee; and Danse chinoise for tea. In Nureyev’s choreography, four couples perform the Danse espagnole which makes for a stunning visual effect. Here, it’s just one couple, as in the original choreography. As we’re in Egypt, the Danse arabe is performed with special panache. Languidly danced by a soloist and her four companions, the moves were akin to belly dancing. The amusing Danse chinoise, performed by mixed dancers, is again performed by one couple, as in the original choreography.
A little less “cuteness” would have been less cloying, but the overly sentimental (and rather politically incorrect) dance did elicit the most applause. The Danse russe, also known as Trepak, is inspired by Russian folklore with Cossack‑like awe‑inspiring footwork for the male dancers. The Variation de la Fée Dragée, gracefully enacted by the Sugar Plum Fairy, was the most graceful of the Act II dances. It’s hard to believe this two‑hour long work was just half a double bill when it premiered in 1892. The other half was the opera Iolanta, the fable of a blind princess, but not in the supernatural genre. Audiences have less endurance today, I guess. As much as I love The Nutcracker, I wonder if other fairytale-inspired ballets, such as Coppélia and The Sleeping Beauty, may alternate with it for this Yuletide tradition. It certainly would be a welcome relief.
Ossama el Naggar
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