It sounds spectacular. It really does. I just wonder what air travel schedules are going to be like near the rollover.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19990929/wl/egypt_millennium_1.html

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), September 30, 1999

Answers

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

Wednesday September 29 1:18 PM ET

Egypt Plans 12-Hour New Year Opera

By VIJAY JOSHI Associated Press Writer

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Egypt will welcome the new millennium with a 12- hour overnight opera, turning the Great Pyramids and the surrounding desert into a sprawling laser-lit stage for a cast of 1,000, officials said Wednesday.

The unprecedented audiovisual experience, beginning sunset on New Year's Eve and ending at dawn on the first day of the third millennium, will evoke the ancient and the modern and use art forms of the West and the East, Culture Minister Farouk Hosny said.

At the stroke of midnight, a 30-foot golden pyramid will be placed atop the missing peak of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, flooding the surrounding area with golden rays to signal the birth of the first day of 2000, he said.

``It will be the very best of the glamor of the Occident and the Orient,'' he said.

Boasting 6,000 years of recorded civilization, Egypt has been promoting the event as the advent of the 7th millennium, and hopes through live television it will upstage scores of other such parties planned around the world.

The three-act opera, composed and directed by French recording artist Jean Michel Jarre, is titled The Twelve Dreams of the Sun.

It depicts the pharaonic belief that after setting on the western horizon, the sun travels in a boat through the dark underworld and passes through 12 gates in 12 hours to be born again - strong and youthful.

The opera will feature fireworks, laser lights projecting images on the Pyramids, and lighting effects ``that will be seen for the first time in the world,'' Hosny told a news conference.

Egypt's Culture Ministry will foot the $9.5 million bill for the show. ``But a major budget was already paid for by the pharaohs thousands of years ago, when they built the pyramids,'' Hosny said.

The music, to be performed by the Cairo Opera House artists, will include the recorded voice of the late Umm Kalthoum, once the Arab world's most famous singer, and will use pharaonic instruments, such as the rababa, the lute and the oud, Jarre said at the news conference.

With a stage spanning 215,000 sq. feet, it will be the biggest project ever for Jarre, who has organized outdoor performances in Houston, Beijing, London, Paris and Moscow.

Jarre said he was not in personal competition with the other worldwide events.

``If anybody can steal the limelight that night, it will be Egypt, not myself,'' he said.

About 50,000 people are expected to attend. Sixty countries have bought television rights. The Egyptian army will open its airport in the Western desert for special flights.

The golden pyramid, to be made of a light metal not yet chosen, will be removed after the show.

Hosny assured the party would not conflict with the coinciding Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

``Islam has nothing against beauty, music or aesthetics,'' he said.

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-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), September 30, 1999.

Don't go! I've been to Egypt twice, most recently last May, and I can tell you that they aren't even ready for 1999, much less 2000. Out of that $9.5 million budget, I'll bet not one cent went for toilet paper.

-- Pearlie Sweetcake (storestuff@home.now), September 30, 1999.

Pearlie,

As impressive as this event sounds, I wouldn't dare be outside of the country at rollover. For any number of reasons, it could take weeks to get back to the U.S. Whenever I see articles about millennium events like this, I wonder how many people will change their plans between now and December 31st and decide to stay home.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), September 30, 1999.

While in Egypt I seem to recall hearing that Michael Jackson would be the featured entertainer at the New Year bash. That didn't sweeten the pot for me at all. Egypt is a third-world country with limited resources now. I can't imagine what it would be like to be stuck there during a crisis. Of course, their lesser reliance on computers may make them better off than us. Still, it's a desert, there's no trash or garbage pickup in Cairo now, and in rural areas they shove their garbage and refuse into their water supply. It can only get worse. (By the way, Linkmeister, do you work at the library that recently had a fire in its basement?)

-- Pearlie Sweetcake (storestuff@home.now), September 30, 1999.

Pearlie,

I don't work for the LFPL, but I used to browse a lot at the library-- sometimes for three or four hours--before the Web came along.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), September 30, 1999.

More than enough time for the Fat Lady to sing.

-- Porky (Porky@in.cellblockD), September 30, 1999.

will they be aboard the titanic??

-- polly 2k. (dogs@zianet.com), September 30, 1999.

This is the only event I would consider watching because I am anxious to see the new gold cap put on the pyramid. I hope I can receive it on television.

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), September 30, 1999.

I won't go if Mr. Jackson is there. He scares me more than Y2k.

-- boy (kindergarden@noway.com), September 30, 1999.