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Nabila Erian featured on magazine cover

Legendary Egyptian Opera Singer to Speak at Met’s La Traviata This Saturday at AUC

One of the first Egyptian opera singers, Soprano Nabila Erian, will be speaking prior to the Met Opera screening of La Traviata this Saturday at the Malak Gabr Arts Theater at The American University in Cairo (AUC). The performance will be broadcast live from New York to more than 2,000 theaters in 70 countries.

La Traviata, or The Fallen Woman, La Dame aux Camelias, is set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Piave, adapted from a novel by Alexandre Dumas. Composed by Giuseppe Verdi, the opera is divided into three acts and traces the tragic love story of the main character Violetta. The role of the courtesan, Violetta, has remained highly regarded and praised as a challenging and dynamic soprano role within the operatic world. The part requires many years of experience, as each act features very particular vocal skills. It was originally performed in 1853 the La Fenice opera house in Venice. 

Erian was the first Egyptian to sing La Traviata at the Cairo Opera House in 1964, before the fire of 1971. She is considered to be the youngest soprano to perform the role of Violetta, and her Arabic performance was regarded as particularly impressive given the pronunciation challenges of the language. She continued to perform for an entire month that year and went on to perform every season for the next 20 years. In the 17 years after the burning of the original Cairo Opera House, Erian performed at AUC’s Ewart Memorial Hall on several occasions until the current opera house was inaugurated in 1988. 

Erian attended the University of Maryland, writing her PhD dissertation on Coptic music in Egypt. She then began her professional opera career in 1960 and has since toured internationally, performing in numerous operas. She has received praise for her illustrious career, presented with an award by Gamal Abdel Nasser at Eid al-Ilm in 1964, a few months following her performance in La TraviataErian taught at the Cairo Conservatoire, part of Egypt’s Academy of Arts, as a professor of vocal sciences. Now retired, she returns to the conservatoire once a week to supervise graduate studies candidates.

For more information and to purchase tickets online, visit: http://www.aucegypt.edu/Met-Live-in-HD.  The Sharjah Art Gallery will also feature Verdi and Egypt exhibition at 6:30 pm next Saturday. 

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Founded in 1919, The American University in Cairo (AUC) is a leading English-language, American- accredited institution of higher education and center of the intellectual, social, and cultural life of the Arab world. It is a vital bridge between East and West, linking Egypt and the region to the world through scholarly research, partnerships with academic and research institutions and study abroad programs. 

The University offers 39 undergraduate, 52 master’s and two PhD programs rooted in a liberal arts education that encourages students to think critically and find creative solutions to conflicts and challenges facing both the region and the world. 

An independent, nonprofit, politically non-partisan, non-sectarian and equal opportunity institution, AUC is fully accredited in Egypt and the United States.