This year the Cairo Opera House celebrates its 20th anniversary with performances by international artists and several special shows. The Opera House has always aimed out to promote the arts of music and dance and to especially preserve, renew traditional Arab music and cultural heritage while sharing the passion for the arts. Performances of ballet, operatic or symphonic works are staged with Egyptian companies or in cooperation with foreign ensembles or soloists. Seminars and cultural conferences covering a wide range of artistic and intellectual issues are held regularly.
The first opera house in Cairo was The Khedivial Opera House (or Royal Opera House). It was built in 1869 by the Khedive Ismail, but burnt to the ground in 1971 because it was made mostly of wood. It received the premiere of Verdi's Opera Aida in 1871. After its destruction, Cairo was without an opera house for 2 decades until the opening of the new opera house that now stands in close to downtown Cairo.
The new Cairo Opera House is part of Cairo's National Culture Center. The funds for the complex were a gift from the nation of Japan to Egypt. In October of 1988 it was inaugurated by President Hosni Mubarak and His Highness, Prince Tomohito of Mikasa, the younger brother of the Japanese Emperor in a remarkable ceremony. It was the first time for Japan to stage a Kabuki show, a traditional popular drama with singing and dancing, in Africa or the Arab World. In recognition of the Cairo Opera House, the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra chose it as a venue for their first performance in the Middle East and Africa in January 2007. 
The museum on the first floor of the Main Hall exhibits rare photos including some from the night the Khedival Opera House burnt down. There are also photos of the most important artistic performances and a number of brochures of concerts that were given in the Opera House before it was destroyed. This wing also exhibits costumes, jewelery, and musical scores of the opera Aida. Some historic documents written in Italian about the artistic performances of the Khedivial Cairo Opera House from 1869 until 1907 are shown as well. The museum also displays a huge wooden nay (oriental flute) about 10cm wide and more than 2m long and a rare piano with additional keys to allow for oriental tunes to be played.
The celebrations this year were launched by the commencement of the Swiss Tales which was attended by Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak and the Swiss President Pascal Couchiepin. The first of the concert was for Francois Lindemann’s seven grand pianos orchestra, “Piano Seven” played by seven Swiss pianists and part of the “Swiss Tales” programme for cultural exchange between Egypt and Switzerland. Over the course of the year a number of prestigious groups have performed at the Cairo Opera House and attracted various audiences and supporters.
Germany participated in this celebration with a performance of the popular Ballet Mannheim and the Twelve Pianists’ concert in which 12 pianists play melodies at one piano. The British Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performed three concerts, with earnings dedicated to the New Children’s Cancer Hospital and Abo El-Reesh Children’s Hospital.
Also participating this year was a performance by the famed Lebanese singer and oud player Marcel Khalifa. The famous Belarus National Academic Bolshoi Ballet Theatre performed their ballet "Swan Lake". There were also performances from the American Smithsonian Jazz Master Works Orchestra and the Irish Lord of the Dance troop.
The story is told in the first person by Sinuhe himself, and written in the form of a poem, combining in a single narrative an extraordinary range of literary styles. The poem continually examines the reasons for Sinuhe's flight and his possible culpability for it, without reaching a conclusion.This biography yields information about political and social conditions of the time. The poem also explores the nature of what it is to be an Egyptian, without ultimately undermining the Egyptian assumption that life outside Egypt is meaningless, by placing an Egyptian character in a non-Egyptian (i.e. Asiatic) society.
His tomb has not been found, but the account of his adventures was a favorite tale in Ancient Egypt and was written many times on papyrus and read for hundreds of years after his death. Specifically, it has been recorded on 6 papyri and 26 ostraca (singular for ostracon and is a piece of pottery or stone, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel), making it one of the most popular literary works, and one of the oldest.
The tale starts with Sinuhe speaking from his tomb. He begins his story while on an expedition to Libya with the eldest son of the King Amen-em-hat Ι. He overhears a messenger speaking of the assassination of the Pharaoh. He decides to flee in a panic, either from fright or because of his complicity it is not clear. He intends to travel southwards but was blown north while crossing the Nile, and continues into the Desert of Sinai and onto Palestine and Lebanon. There he almost dies, and as he gives up all hope for life he hears the low of cattle. He is found and tended to by a Bedouin who recognizes him as an Egyptian of importance.
As she was different from the other house-girl servants, with pale skin, rosy cheeks, golden hair that blew in the wind and bright green eyes, they were very jealous of her, teasing and making fun of her. They gave her all the dirty chores of washing cloths and weeding the garden. Her master was old and spent most of his day sleeping under a fig tree, but one day he woke to see Rhodopis dancing with such beautiful grace, he presented her with a pair of red-rose gilded slippers, which caused even more jealousy from the other servant girls. 
He was so moved by what happened that he decreed that, all the land be searched for who ever fits the slipper, and the owner will be Pharaoh's wife. Ahmose’s search eventually leads him to Rhodopis’ home. Though Rhodopis hides when she sees the Pharaoh’s barge, he sees her and asks her to try the slipper. After demonstrating that it fits her, she pulls out its mate, and the Pharaoh declares that she will be his Queen and the Royal Lady of Egypt, and they live happily ever after of course!
It was told that Isis managed to trick the all powerful sun god Ra into telling her his secret name (the name that held all his divine power). By creating a magical serpent that bit Ra. She was called upon to cure him but to do so she had to know his secret name, which he finally divulged giving her power equal to his own and so she became divine and as powerful as Ra himself.
The end to this religion came in 535 A.D. when the Roman emperor Flavius Anicius Justinianus ordered the closure of the temple, forbad the art of reading and writing hieroglyphs and imprisoned its priests. This put an end to the religion that had spread beyond the lands of Egypt and spread all across the Mediterranean.
Isis was the sister-wife of Osiris and the mother of the god Horus. Osiris was a great and just king who was loved by his people and wife, but he was hated by his brother Seth (the god of the underworld). Seth was jealous of his brother so he devised a plan to get rid of him. He secretly obtained Osiris' measurements and had a magnificent casket of the rarest wood and decorated with ebony, ivory, silver and gold made to fit him exactly. He then held a great feast in honor of Osiris where he offered to give the casket to whoever fit it exactly. With the aid of 72 of his wicked friends they tricked Osiris into trying it for size, but as soon as he lay in it they nailed the lid shut and threw the casket into the Nile.
And when no one was looking she opened the chest and turned into a bird called the kite and flapped her mighty wings. The wind created by her wings gave Osiris the Breath of Life for one day, during which she conceived her son Horus from him. Seth managed to find the casket again and after opening it he rented the body into 14 pieces and scattered them along the shores of the Nile for the crocodiles to eat. Isis seeking the help of her sister Nephthys and Anubus the son of Nephthys, who was said to take the form of a jackal to find all the pieces of Osiris. All the pieces were recovered except for one. She stuck the pieces together and wrapped him in linen making him the first Egyptian mummy. Not able to return in a human form, Osiris was sent to rule the underworld, being the only person to live after death. 
Isis then returned to raise her son Horus, who often took the form of a hawk. Horus eventually avenges the death of his father and manages to defeat Seth. Horus was then given the privilege of taking his father's place and ruling Earth as Osiris had once done.
The Egyptians were one of the earliest civilizations to kept record in writing their everyday lives. However, the earliest preserved story written dates back from the Middle Kingdom, and because most of their literary tradition was oral or spoken, it was never written down, so the works that have actually survived are fewer than be expected.
From autobiographies and mythological tales to folk and fairy tales the ancient Egyptians made journals of it all, on papyrus paper, walls or even slabs of stone. My personal favorite is the Legend of Isis and Osiris. The story tells of the good and benevolent King Osiris
There's also the oldest Cinderella story, but in the ancient Egyptian version the glass slippers are "rose red slippers". And from the Ptolemaic period there's "The Seven Years of Famine" which was discovered on the rocks of the Island of Sahal in 1890 by Charles Wilbour. But the oldest and most popular tales of Egyptians was the story of Sinuhe. This story was preserved in six papyri and two dozen ostraca. This biography tells of Sinuhe who fled Egypt to Western Asia after the assassination of King Amenemhat Ι. After many years Sinuhe returned to his homeland when he was pardoned by King Senusert Ι and reinstated at the royal court. 
The fairy tale of Setne Khamwas, a son of Ramesses ΙΙ tells of his fascination with the magic texts of the past brought him to an encounter with the ghost of a long dead magician in his tomb at Saqqara. In a story within a story, he learned of an episode of the magician's life. On the golden shrine of Tutankhamun, was the story "The Book of the Cow of Heaven" (or "the Destruction of Mankind") which tells of the sun god, Ra, who was confronted with a rebellion of mankind, so he sent his "eye," Hathor, or in a later version, Sekhmet, down to earth in the form of a lioness, which proceeded to devour men. When Ra called her back she refused, so he had to trick her. One night he created a red colored beer that looked like human blood. Sekhmet drank it all and became intoxicated and so in this way Ra saved humankind. 
"The Turquoise Amulet" was a story of a maiden who loses a hair clasp in the form of an amulet of turquoise. This is one of the stories that helped to give Snefru the title of The Good King, for it shows his good nature and his willingness to please others, something other pharaohs would not dream of doing. Another story that was written on the Harris Papyrus which is housed in the British Museum is "The Doomed Prince". When it was first discovered the story was complete, but since then, the papyrus has been partly destroyed and the end of the story has been lost. This story may also be known by the title "The Crocodile, the Snake and the Dog" because it tells of a prince who was fated by the gods to die by the Snake, the Crocodile or the Dog. 
The tales are many, and are all fascinating and captivating. During the course of the next few posts we'll rediscover their charm, also getting an insight into a culture that built its civilization on stories of the gods.