Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass announced that a Tutankhamun Opera will be staged on 3 and 4 March in front of Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple in Luxor.
His remarks came on Friday as he was giving the main lecture of the scientific conference organised by the American Research Centre to review the latest scientific research conducted on King Tutankhamun, his relics, and tomb.
The experts participating in the conference gave lectures on various topics, including King Tutankhamun’s life and death, as well as the history of excavations from his tomb.
Earlier, Hawass told Daily News Egypt that the Tutankhamun Opera will be a “great surprise to world audiences.”
“It is an attempt on my part to tell the story [of the boy king Tut] in an appealing way,” Hawass said.
He also said that this new opera recounts the conflict between Egypt and the Kushites who sought to conquer it. In this opera, he imagines that when Tutankhamun was born, the Kushites wanted to take revenge on his father and kill the child, but their failed attempts led to the rise of a monarch that would eventually vanquish them.
“Here I have shown that the Kushite people did not originate from Egypt but came from South Sudan and ruled Egypt only during the XXV Pharaonic Dynasty. I wrote this opera in English, and it was translated into Italian. All the involved musicians, orchestra, and actors are from Italy, and we are thinking of recruiting Egyptians to the cast,” he explained.
Egypt celebrated on Friday the 100th anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb by British archaeologist Howard Carter and his team.
Tutankhamun is considered one of the most famous pharaohs of ancient Egypt, as he ascended the throne at the age of nine and died at 19.
