A Reading of the Grand Egyptian Museum Opening Ceremony, By Director Mahmoud Mahmoud

In the wake of the grand opening ceremony of the Grand Egyptian Museum, director Mahmoud Mahmoud offers this critical reading of the event from both a directorial and philosophical perspective. He explores the interplay of light, music, and scenography, uncovering the subtle messages and the unfinished images woven into the spectacle.

Let’s delve deeper into this remarkable critical essay…

Give me my name in the great house,
Let my tongue speak with the voice of my soul before you.
I have emerged into the light—grant my face the sight of the sun.

A Reading of the Grand Egyptian Museum Opening Ceremony

The Directorial Vision

The ceremony was grand in concept yet lacked a unifying dramatic structure. Transitions between segments looked detached, missing an emotional thread to guide the viewer from awe to pride.

The show could have unfolded as a visual journey narrating the rebirth of a civilization, but the imagery remained confined to form without reaching the essence of the idea.

Philosophy of the Image

Although the location at the feet of the Pyramids provides any director an epic setting, the frame remained safe and familiar. The constant choice of wide shots weakened the sense of depth, and the absence of visual diversity restricted imagination within the scene.

The wonder was in the location itself, yet the camera did not dare to dream like it.

Visual Rhythm

The general rhythm of the ceremony was slow and fragmented, lacking equilibrium between contemplation and live tempo.

A dramatic build-up could have been created, making us feel as if we were experiencing a truly living event, but the numerous breaks and transitions weakened the sense of internal time.

Lighting Design

The lighting moved with the music, but did not narrate the story alongside it. The difference between mechanical and expressive lighting is that the former follows a rhythm without meaning, while the latter conveys the same feeling through the language of light. The lighting was beautiful, but it lacked a narrative philosophy; it didn’t reflect the psychological or symbolic states that each moment of the concert deserved.

Music

The musical work was elegant in structure, majestic in spirit—yet occasionally more preoccupied with precision than with life. Mechanical music moves with engineered accuracy but does not breathe; while expressive music becomes the soul of the scene.

In some parts of the ceremony, we felt more grandeur than emotion —and here lies the difference between music that is heard and music that is felt.

The Risk of the Operatic Tone

The operatic style granted the ceremony grandeur, yet carried a hidden risk: that the Western voice might swallow the Egyptian identity. Opera is magnificent, but it speaks a universal tongue that doesn’t understand the local dialect. When the orchestra rises to drown out the Eastern melody, we lose the true moment of connection with the soil, the Nile, and its people.

The excessive use of choruses and expansive strings sometimes made the scene resemble a Hollywood epic, when what was needed was a moment of quiet Egyptian atmosphere, where the world could hear the lament of the stones, not the clamor of concert halls. Identity doesn’t require a louder voice, but a deeper feeling.

Humming and Clapping

Among the most beautiful moments of the performance were those that recaptured the raw human voice. The humming embodied the first breath in rituals of eternity, and the clap was a collective call returning rhythm to the body. But in the final mix, the sound seemed distant—losing the warmth of the moment.

Had the camera drawn closer to hands and breaths, the scene would have become a genuine moment of prayer, not a mere sound effect.

Vocal Calls

The background calls were the most authentic echo of the place’s soul. They were summons from the past—as if the stone itself spoke. Not song, not music, but a summoning of memory through sound.

These calls revived history’s pulse and proved that sometimes sound is more powerful than image in bringing time back to life.

Musical Direction

The relationship between music and image appeared formally coordinated lacked emotional depth. The shot did not breathe with the melody, and the light did not respond to the musical phrase. The visual movement could have served as a mirror to the music, but the editing remained detached from the inner rhythm.

The scene needed a single moment of silence to become eternal—but the fear of stillness kept everything in continuous motion.

Costumes

The costumes were luxurious in presence, meticulous in details, yet failed to craft a new language bridging the past and present. Pharaonic symbols were used as they were—rather than reimagined contemporarily.

Colors and materials could have redefined the modern Egyptian aesthetic with symbolic nuance, but instead remained more decorative than meaningful.

Scenography and Stage Design

The stage design at the event was magnificent, a masterpiece of balanced layers, lighting, and symbolism. The geometric lines and upper levels conveyed the concept of layered time within the structure, where the past rises above the present, and light ascends from the stone to the sky. However, the cameras failed to capture this beauty effectively. Frontal shots eliminated depth, making the stage appear flat despite its multi-level structure and rich detail.

The upper section carried symbolic meaning of connection between earth and sky, but it did not appear on screen with due reverence. The fault was not in the set—it was in its execution. What artists built on the ground was a masterpiece that the broadcast image did not honor.

Recorded Scenes

The recorded scenes were the highlight of the show. Filmed with a sophisticated cinematic eye, it pulsated with light and emotion. It possessed a sincerity, tranquility, and beauty befitting Egypt. It presented a poetic image that recounted history as a dream, not a document, and proved that when cinema captures the Egyptian spirit, it says what live broadcasting cannot.

Human Movement Direction

The crowd movement was organized and precise, yet lacked feeling. The human masses moved like signals, not emotions. Organization was beautiful, but art requires crafted spontaneity. Motion could have become a dramatic language expressing humanity’s relationship with stone and light—but remained geometric movement without life.

Camera Direction and Live Broadcast

Despite the vastness of the venue, the camera placement was inadequate for the event. The limited angles resulted in repetitive scenes and faces.

The broadcast appeared organized but lacked visual surprise. A single moving camera or a reverse-angle shot could have changed the entire experience. The problem wasn’t the number of cameras, but the vision.

Selection of Human Elements

The discussion about the human element isn’t limited to those on stage, but extends to those around them, behind the scenes, and in front of the cameras in their hands. In an event of this magnitude, every person in the picture, or even in its vicinity, is part of the cultural scene the world is witnessing. Herein lies the deeper problem: we didn’t just err in the artistic selection, but also in the cultural and behavioral choices.

Many of the young participants or those working behind the scenes treated the event as a lighthearted occasion for personal documentation, flooding social media with funny clips and reels that portray the event’s backdrop as a space for everyday frivolity, when it should have been a sacred space for beauty and respect. The issue isn’t their desire to film or their joy, but rather the lack of awareness of the moment. You are standing in a place that history will recount for thousands of years, yet you choose to film it as if you’re at a festival, not a cultural event. Herein lies the crux of the problem: awareness isn’t taught in an acting workshop, nor is it acquired through lighting or makeup, but rather through a person’s sense of the value of what they are participating in.

In art, the image exposes not only those who don’t know what to say—but also those who don’t know where to stand. A national event requires people who understand that “respect is part of beauty,” and that the frame deserves only those who realize they represent a nation, not a moment.

Cultural and Behavioral Dimension

What occurred cannot be called technical error—it was a gap in cultural awareness. We possess great tools, but sometimes use them without spirit. The flaw lies not in camera, décor, or music, but in the human who does not grasp the sanctity of art when it touches history. Awareness is the missing element in the formula of brilliance. And when the artist regains awareness, Egypt regains its true voice.

The Director and His Sincere Vision

The word “mistake” in art is harsh and unfair. Art isn’t a right or wrong equation, but rather a human experience open to possibilities of expression. What was presented at the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum wasn’t a lack of direction, but rather a courageous gamble on a grand dream. The director undertook a complex task managing dozens of elements simultaneously: light, music, movement, image, the audience, cameras, and the museum’s vast architectural space. This undertaking was a visual feat of heroism, demanding courage, patience, and unwavering belief in the idea until the very end.

We may disagree on the details or wish for more poetic shots, but it’s undeniable that the director delivered a sincere national work, striving to create a scene worthy of Egypt’s history from light, time, and humanity. Perhaps what we see today is an observation, but the future will see it as a foundational experience for future events and artistic endeavors.

As a director, I don’t view this work as a detached critic, but as a colleague who understands what it means to struggle amidst light, pressure, and time, to manage a dream in a moment where mistakes are unacceptable. Therefore, every successful scene and every incomplete shot are part of a great directorial journey that deserves respect.

The Scriptwriter and the Seed of the Idea

The script upon which the performance was based had a noble intention, but it lacked the true spirit of the ancient Egyptian text. The writer could have evoked the actual phrases inscribed on temple walls and papyri—words truly spoken by our ancestors, carrying the primal music of the universe. Instead, the script settled for general phrases closer to modern poetic discourse, thus losing the depth that distinguishes the language of ancient Egypt from any other.

The writer attempted to connect the past and the present, but the text emerged more in form than in feeling. We didn’t hear “the voice of Egypt” on stage as much as we heard “an attempt to imitate it.”

In such events, words are not mere embellishment but a gateway to energy, summoning the spirit of history when written with sincerity. The absence of the original words was a significant dramatic loss, for they alone could have bestowed upon the performance its human sanctity.

The Composer and the Voice of Civilization

The composer bore a heavy responsibility: to translate thousands of years of history into a single melody understood without translation. The musical work was akin to a dialogue between humanity and time, blending tradition and modernity, Western instruments and Eastern spirit. People may disagree on the details of rhythm or melodic embellishment, but no one can deny the unique identity that marked his music.

Every piece he wrote was like an emotional translation of Egypt itself—sometimes mysterious, sometimes sacred, and sometimes deeply human, even tearful. In the world of sound, only those with a musical sensibility can endure, and that is what he did. He left his mark on the memory of Egyptians and the world. Music here was not background; it was the conscience of the performance, playing what the visuals did not say, leaving an unforgettable echo of the event.

Absence of a Central Theme

What the overall experience lacked was not detail, but theme. There was no emotional thread or grand idea uniting sound with image, light with time. We witnessed beautiful segments, refined scenes, elegant music—but not a single story joining them.

A theme is the soul of a work; it’s what makes the audience feel that every detail, no matter how small, is moving towards one meaning. In this performance, that theme was missing, so every element seemed to be moving in its own direction: the music in one direction, the lighting in another and the words in a third.

Had a clear central theme existed—a single core idea—they could have formed a spiritual epic rather than a ceremonial event. Its absence made the work appear as sincere attempts unrooted in the ground from which they sprang: Egypt.

Finally

Despite all observations, the event remains a monumental moment worthy of pride. Every person involved in that night was part of a chapter that will be written in the history of modern Egyptian art. We do not critique to weaken—but to complete. Criticism here is not opposition, but love seeking perfection.

A salute to Egypt, which redefined beauty—and a salute to every artist who carried the light upon his shoulders to tell the world that civilization does not sleep, but waits for those who dare to hear it again.