By Kabeer Yousuf - MUSCAT — “Asdaa Musiqiya”, the pre-launch season of the iconic Royal Opera House is all set to host a unique fusion of art and music in Muscat between September 20 and December 21. In September alone, as many as four internationally acclaimed artistes and opera houses will arrive in the capital to enthrall the audience at the Oman Auditorium in Al Bustan Palace Hotel.
The first one will be the Prague Chamber Orchestra on Monday (September 20), at the Oman Auditorium, Al Bustan Palace Hotel, where a large turnout is expected. This will follow the next in the series on Thursday (September 23), Jazzing Flamenco at the same venue. “The next one in the series for is a stunning performance by Naseer Shamma and the Eastern Orchestrta, Silk on Monday (September 27) at the same auditorium,” Iman al Hindawi, General Director, Royal Opera House, told the Observer.
The last performance for September is by music diva from the Arab world, Amal Maher presenting A Tribute to Umm Kulthum on Thursday (September 30) at Oman Auditorium, Al Bustan Palace. The youth sensation will be accompanied by Selim Sahab. A series of performances by other globally acclaimed artistes and opera houses are being chalked out for November and December as part of the ‘Asda’a Musiqiya’, the pre-launch season, according to the sources at the Royal Opera House.
A star-studded season, packed with music and festival fervour, the performances will mark the grand prelude to the opening, later this year, of the Royal Opera House, an ambitious landmark in the country’s and the region’s musical arena as a whole. The season will end on December 21, 2010. All set to be a monument, this will serve as a world-class performing arts centre with exceptional acoustic effect so that the finest nuances of jazz or strains of world classic music and the heaving and sighs of characters in a play can be enjoyed with the highest fidelity in sound technology. The total area of Royal Opera House is 80,000 sqm of which nearly 40,000 sqm is to be used for beautification and landscaping with gardens.
