Kaleidoscope Fatma Said

• Joaquim Nin (1879 - 1949):
• 1 Nin: Minué cantado 02:30
• Jules Massenet (1842 - 1912):
• 2 Massenet: Obéissons, quand leur voix appelle (Manon) 03:20
• André Messager (1853 - 1929):
• 3 Messager: Il est dans les nuits espagnoles (La Fiancée en Loterie) 03:13
• Oscar Straus (1870 - 1954):
• 4 Straus: Je t‘aime (Les Trois Valses) 03:59
• Johann Strauss II (1825 - 1899):
• 5 Strauss II: Wiener Blut (Wiener Blut) 02:41
• Franz Lehár (1870 - 1948):
• 6 Lehár: Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß (Giuditta) 06:02
• Jacques Offenbach (1819 - 1880):
• 7 Offenbach: Barcarolle Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) 03:58
• Charles Gounod (1818 - 1893):
• 8 Gounod: Je veux vivre (Roméo et Juliette) 03:58
• Geronimo Gimenez (1854 - 1923):
• 9 Gimenez: La tarántula é un bicho mú malo (La Tempranica) 01:34
• Frederick Loewe (1854 - 1923):
• 10 Loewe: I Could Have Danced All Night (My Fair Lady) 02:36
• Friedrich Schröder (1910 - 1972):
• 11 Schröder: Ich tanze mit dir in den Himmel hinein 03:23
• Irving Berlin (1888 - 1989):
• 12 Berlin: Cheek to Cheek 03:12
• Kurt Weill (1900 - 1950):
• 13 Weill: Youkali 04:14
• Carlos Gardel (1890 - 1935):
• 14 Gardel: Por una cabeza 03:00
• Ángel Gregorio Villoldos (1861 - 1919):
• 15 Villoldos: Ad Ay Sa’ab (El Choclo) 02:44
• Astor Piazzolla (1921 - 1992):
• 16 Piazzolla: Yo Soy María 03:17
• 17 Piazzolla: J’oublie (Oblivion) 04:20
• Serge Gainsbourg (1928 - 1991):
• 18 Gainsbourg: La Javanaise 02:46
• Gino Paoli (b. 1934):
• 19 Paoli: Senza fine 03:11
• George Merill (b. 1956, Shannon Rubicam (b. 1951):
• 20 Merill/Rubicam: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me) 04:08
• Total Runtime 01:08:06

Info for Kaleidoscope

Egyptian soprano Fatma Said blazed onto the classical scene with her multi-award-winning debut on Warner Classics, El Nour, honoured with two Awards apiece from Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine in 2021.

The young opera singer now follows her success with an equally imaginative and even more colourful release: Kaleidoscope, named for its cross-cultural and genre-defying programme, showcasing the talents and passions of the star, particularly dance.

Fatma Said began singing lessons in her hometown, Cairo, at the age of 14. Having studied in Berlin, she later achieved a scholarship to study at the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milan – the first-ever Egyptian soprano to perform on la Scala’s famous stage. By 2016, she had been selected as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, and in 2019, made her BBC Proms debut. Numerous international awards followed, culminating in a performance at the Global Citizen event in 2021 alongside icons such as Elton John and the Black-Eyed Peas, showcasing her talent to a live audience of 25,000 and millions watching online.

Said was signed exclusively to Warner Classics in 2019, releasing her first album, El Nour, in 2020. A year later, she became the first non-European to win Germany’s Best Young Artist prize, in addition to earning both vocal and young artist awards from BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone respectively.

A keen Argentine tango dancer, Kaleidoscope for Said represents the opportunity to combine her long-standing passion for dance with her love of music. She said of the album: “For me, music and dance interlink as one: they are emotion and physicality in unison – a single entity. It’s hard to imagine music without dance, or dance without music […] Since I was very young, dancing has accompanied me everywhere, and I’ve learned several different styles: Ballroom, Latin, Argentinian tango, and more. I’ve always felt inspired by the physical and internal movement in dancing – whether with a partner or alone – and for me it represents another way of expressing myself.”

The album features works from opera, operetta, and film, sung in no less than six languages – French, German, English, Spanish, Italian and Arabic. Several songs derive from films from the 1930s, including numbers such as Berlin’s ‘Cheek to Cheek’, Piazolla’s ‘J’oublie’, Weill’s ‘Youkali’, and the ever-popular ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ from My Fair Lady. Offenbach’s ‘Barcarolle’ from Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Gounod’s ‘Valse’ from Roméo et Juliette are two examples of the operatic offerings on the disc, in addition to works from operettas by Johan Strauss, Lehár, Messager and D’Estalenx, and Massenet. The rest of the album is made up of other works for soprano by French, Spanish, Argentine, and Italian composers, concluding with the crowd-pleaser ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’, made famous by the pop icon Whitney Houston.

Fatma Said’s musical collaborators for the album are Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo conducted by Sascha Goetzel, mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa (in the Barcarolle from Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann), trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary (in Irving Berlin’s ‘Cheek to Cheek’), and tango ensemble Quinteto Ángel.

Fatma Said, Sopran
Tim Allhoff, Klavier
Christian Gerber, Bandoneon
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzosopran
Lucienne Renaudin Vary, Trompete
vision string quartet
Quinteto Angel
Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo
Sascha Goetzel, Dirigent

Fatma Said
At the age of 14 Fatma Said embarked on a musical journey that would take her from her home in Cairo to the Academy of Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists and ultimately to the world’s most prestigious concert and opera stages. Fatma is an exclusive Warner Recording Artist and has won numerous awards including the Gramophone Classical Music Award, the BBC Music Magazine’s Vocal Award as well as Germany’s Opus Klassik.

Fatma took her first singing lessons in Cairo with soprano Neveen Allouba and later studied Opera Singing at Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler with Professor Renate Faltin. Fatma subsequently was awarded a scholarship to study at the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milan, becoming the first Egyptian soprano to perform on this iconic stage. In Milan she sang - among numerous other roles - Pamina in a new Peter Stein production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, after which Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung heralded, “The flawless, radiant Fatma Said as Pamina is a discovery.”

Fatma is thrilled to embark on an exciting 2024/25 season. Highlights include her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, and WDR Sinfonieorchester and she will ring in the New Year 2025 with a gala performance for the ZDF also marking her debut with Staatskapelle Dresden. Continuing her successful partnership with Malcom Martineau and Sabine Meyer, Fatma will perform as part of a trio at Wigmore Hall and Schloss Elmau, and present solo recitals at the Schubertiade festival in Austria and Casino Basel. A passionate Lied singer, Fatma eagerly anticipates the release of a German song album “Lieder” with Warner Classics in February 2025.

Recent highlights from previous seasons include acting as Artist in Residence at the Wiener Konzerthaus, touring her second album Kaleidoscope released on Warner Classics in 2022 and a dynamic residency with the Konzerthaus Berlin where she presented a range of colourful programs. She has also appeared on prestigious stages worldwide, including a gala concert at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo and two appearances at the annual Concert de Paris in 2020 and 2024.

Throughout the past years she has also appeared on the stages of Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Staatsoper Hamburg, Royal Opera House in Muscat, Wexford Opera in Ireland, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Philharmonie Cologne, Konzerthaus Berlin, Royal Albert Hall in London, Mozarteum in Salzburg, Vienna Konzerthaus, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Pembroke Music Festival, Schubertiade Festival of Valdegovia, Lockenhaus Festival, Schumann Festival in Bonn, Mozart-Woche in Salzburg, Beethoven Festival in Bonn, and the Music Festival of Bad Kissingen amongst others.

Fatma’s operatic roles on stage include Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Nannetta (Falstaff), Clorinda (La Cenerentola), and the role of L’Amour (Orphée et Eurydice) at the Teatro alla Scala among others. She sang Genovieffa (Suor Angelica) with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons in a concert performance and the main role Tharsis in the new production of Mozart’s T.H.A.M.O.S. during the Mozart-Woche Festival 2019 in Salzburg staged by Fura Dels Baus.

Fatma Said is a strong advocate for causes that are close to her heart: In September 2021, Fatma performed at Global Citizen Live – a worldwide 24-hour livestreamed charity event which sees artists from around the world campaign to end the hunger crisis, protect the planet and plan its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The artists lineup included musicians such as Elton John and Ed Sheeran. She represented Egypt on Human Right’s Day in 2014, 2017 and 2018 at the United Nations in Geneva as well as at the Luxor Temple and sang for children's right to education and dignity through music. In 2016, she received an honorary award from Egypt’s National Council for Women. In the same year she became the first Egyptian opera singer ever to be awarded the state’s Creativity Award, one of Egypt’s highest accolades, for her outstanding artistic achievement on an international level.

In 2023 Fatma received the Rafik Hariri Award from the Atlantic Council in Washington for her artistic excellence and in 2024 she was awarded the European Cultural Price in Luxembourg.

Fatma continues working with Professor Renate Faltin and has had distinguished professors and coaches, such as Julia Varady, Claar Ter Horst, Anita Keller, Wolfram Rieger and Tom Krause, who have strongly influenced her musical development and helped her hone her musical interpretation.

Fatma won several major singing competitions including the 8th Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition (Dublin, 2016), the 7th Leyla Gencer International Opera Competition (Istanbul, 2012), 2nd prize at the 16th International Robert Schumann Lied Competition (Zwickau, 2012) and the Grand Prix at the 1st Giulio Perotti International Opera Competition (Germany, 2011).

Booklet for Kaleidoscope