San Francesco e il Sultano
St. Francis and the Sultan
القديس فرنسيس والسلطان
Opera in four parts
Libretto: Bartolomeo Pirone (the link to the text in Italian and Arabic https://www.tsorganfestival.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Francesco_Sultano_opera.pdf )
Music: Fr. Khalil Rahme
Orchestration: Fadi Taouk
Beirut – Qantari, St. Elias Church, November 6, 2021
World premiere
Presentation by Fr.Quirico Calella (Italian) and Fr. Firas Lutfi (Arabic), Custody of the Holy Land
Produced by the Custody of the Holy Land and the Notre Dame University/ School of Music (Lebanon) with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute in Beirut and Pro Terra Sancta. Technical sponsor: Noursat / Telelumiere.
CHARACTERS AND PERFORMERS
Francesco: Bechara Moufarrej
Chiara: Grace Medawar
Il Sultano: Fernando Afara
Fatima: Lara Jokhadar
Frate Elia: Tony Sfeir
Lo Sheikh: Tony Sfeir
Il muezzin: Josef Issa
Notre Dame University Choir & Orchestra
Fr. Khalil Rahme, conductor
2:54 Speech of Fr. Quirico Calella (Italian)
7:55 Speech of Fr. Firas Lutfi (Arabic)
13:06 First part: in Assisi (The choir, Chiara, Francesco, Frate Elia)
33:43 Second part: from Assisi to Acre (orchestra and choir)
40:14 Third part: from Acre to Damietta (instrumental interlude)
44:50 Fourth part: in Egypt (Francesco, the choir, chorus of guards, Fatima, the Sultan, the Sheikh)
54:04 Instrumental interlude: in the sultan’s tent
1:15:44 Interlude: in the night the song of the muezzin is heard
1:28:45 Final (choir and fugue)
“The opera “St. Francis and the Sultan” is one of the fruits of a long and laborious work begun before the celebrations for the eighth centenary (1219-2019) of the meeting between St. Francis and the sultan al-Malek al-Kāmel in Damietta , in Egypt. (…)
The historic meeting, which today constitutes a forerunner model of interreligious dialogue, has inspired many artists and scholars to apply themselves to this event. St. Francis went to the sultan of Egypt (who at the time ruled over the Egyptian lands and exercised some control over the Middle East, including the Holy Land with Jerusalem) with the intention of announcing the gospel of Christ to him, not with the violence of arms. crusades, but with the respect due to a brother. By virtue of his disposition of mind, he obtained from the Sultan the same respect and the gift for him and his friars to be able to reside in the Holy Land, something that has continued to this day.
The text of the work is by Bartolomeo Pirone, former professor of Arabic language and literature at the Faculty of Arab-Islamic and Mediterranean Studies of the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, and guest professor at the Pontifical Institute of Arab Studies and of Islam of Rome. (…) Today, with this work, we also discover him as a writer and poet with a “high” language, who has taken into account the needs of versification and putting into music, also revising the translation into Arabic, which in some points differs significantly not substantial from the Italian original.
I thank prof. Pirone for the enthusiasm and dedication with which he accepted our invitation to try his hand at this enterprise, and with him also Therese Francis, translator and professor of Fine Arts at the Lebanese University (UL), particularly linked to St. Francis also by virtue of his surname. A special thank goes to Father Khalil Rahme, composer and director of the Music School of the Notre Dame University in Lebanon and to fra Riccardo Ceriani, editor of the present edition of the libretto. I take this chance to extend my thanks also to all those people who have done their utmost and will do their utmost in the musical production of the opera, first and foremost the maestro Cosimo Prontera.
Music is the art that by its nature lends itself best to communion and dialogue, and interreligious dialogue has become an essential necessity of our times. Pope Francis also reiterated this in his encyclical “Fratelli tutti” and in his travels to Egypt, Morocco and, especially, Dubai, with the publication of the Document on Universal Brotherhood, signed together with the imām of the mosque-university of al-Azhar ( Cairo) Aḥmad al-Ṭayyib.
Eight hundred years later, the message of peace of St. Francis, launched to the world also during his passage in the Middle East, is a still valid and very topical model of reciprocity, tolerance, dialogue and universal brotherhood. I invite everyone to enjoy this opera by taking advantage of the example given to us by St. Francis and the sultan of Egypt al-Malek al-Kāmel, and to read it from the point of view of the events which, under the pretext of religion, strike in our different times. countries in the Middle East and around the world”.
The Lord give you Peace
Fr. Quirico Calella
Superior of the convent of St. Francis in Tripoli-Mina, Lebanon – Custody of the Holy Land
Promoter of the initiatives for the Eighth Centenary of the meeting between St. Francis and the Sultan in Lebanon
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