The exhibition Divas in Wereldmuseum Amsterdam (2023-2024) showcased the lives and careers of the greatest female artists of the Arab music and film world of the last century. Women whose work had a worldwide artistic and social impact. Four well-known divas from the exhibition are Umm Kulthum, Asmahan, Fairuz and Warda. In this collection story you can read more about their lives and careers, and listen to their music.
Umm Kulthum was born in the late nineteenth century as Fatima Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Beltagi in a religious family in Tamay al-Zahayira, a village in the Nile Delta. Dressed as a boy, she started singing in her father’s ensemble and won over the audience with her voice. In 1923, this young lady settled in Cairo permanently. Surrounded by great musicians and intellectuals, she changed her repertoire and her appearance – a diva was born.
In 1926 she made her first recording, In kunt asamih (If I forgive you): the start of a successful career. She sung about desire, love, pain, and parting. Starting in 1934, and for the next 27 years, she gave a concert every first Thursday of the month that was broadcast live on Radio Cairo.
Umm Kulthum gained the honorific title of ‘Star of the Orient’. On stage, she was the queen of improvisation, with a powerful and low voice without equal. By repeating lines time and again, her songs often lasted more than an hour – making her audiences ecstatic. She nurtured her image with great care and discretion. Her close relationship with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser also made her an ambassador for Pan-Arabism, the movement for the political and cultural unification of Arabic-speaking countries.
Umm Kulthum was a private person. She performed as an artist in a man’s world and guarded her private life. Ironically, it was this desire for privacy that helped develop the air of mystique around her person. Her silk scarf, the only object she brought onto the stage from her very first concert, her diamonds, her bun, her glasses, and her pearls became her trademark. The career of Umm Kulthum lasted from the mid-1920s until the early 1970s. She died in 1975 in Cairo.
Images Umm Kulthum: © Institut du monde arabe
Nuhad Haddad was born in Beirut in 1935 into a humble Christian family. In 1947, Halim el-Rumi, the director of Radio Liban, became fascinated by this young lady. He gives her the stage name Fairuz, which means turquoise. Her future husband Assi Rahban and his brother Mansur discovered the voice that would bring about a musical revolution. From then on, everything he composed would be about Lebanon. They created a new style, in which Lebanese folklore music would be combined with classical rhythms.
After the Arab defeat in the Six-Day War of 1967, her singing became more dramatic. At the time, she appealed to the world by performing the song Jerusalem (Al-Quds). Fairuz became an icon. The modest artist with an iron will became the embodiment of love and tolerance throughout the Arab world.
In 1975, Lebanon became embroiled in a civil war that would continue until 1990. Fairuz refused to go into exile or to take sides, but she did decide to remain silent. On 17 September 1994, Fairuz again appeared on stage in the ravaged city of Beirut and was finally reunited with the Lebanese public whose admiration for her had not waned.
Fairuz is the only diva from the exposition to ever perform in the Netherlands; in 2011 at the Holland Festival.
Warda Ftouki acquired fame as Warda Al-Jazairia (‘the Algerian rose’). She was born to a Lebanese mother and Algerian father. She started her career as a nine-year-old in her father’s cabaret in Paris, the TAM TAM (derived from the initials of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.) Her songs reflected her involvement with the Algerian struggle for independence from France. After her father was accused of concealing weapons for the Front de Libération National Algérien (FLN), she was forced in 1956 to live in exile with her family.
It was only in 1962 when Algeria became independent that she came to know her homeland. In 1972, she was invited by Algerian president Houari Boumédiène to sing during the anniversary marking the country’s independence. After that, Algerian independence continued to be an important theme in her work.
With her musical style she kept alive the legacy of Umm Kulthum, while at the same time adding new sounds from the Maghreb. Warda’s career, which was marked by exile and played out in Paris, Beirut, Cairo, and Algiers, displayed the cultural solidarity of the Arab region and the diaspora community originating from it.
Amal al-Atrash was a Druze princess of Syrian-Lebanese origin who grew up in Cairo. The family lived in poverty but regularly hosted influential musicians from the city. It was soon obvious that Amal and her brother Farid were very talented. Under the name Asmahan, ‘the exalted’, Amal started performing in the concert halls of Cairo from the early 1930s. She quickly became a success, thanks to her exceptional voice and her talent for improvisation.
In the eyes of her eldest brother she led a dissolute life. He invoked the Druze tradition and obliged her to marry. She found it impossible to reconcile her life as a housewife and mother in As-Suwayda, in south-west Syria, with her career as an artist, and she suffered from depression. After her divorce, Asmahan returned to Cairo where, during the Second World War, she chose the side of the Allies.
In 1944, while making her second film, Love and Revenge, Asmahan drowned as a result of a car accident. The whirlwind career of the diva and the tragic circumstances of her death remain a source of fascination and speculation.