AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum died 50 years ago this week. She remains arguably the most influential Arab singer in and outside the Arab world. In Paris, there were three days of concerts to pay homage. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley went to one of them.
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ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Cairo National Orchestra played to a full house at Paris' Philharmonie concert hall. Lutes, flutes and violins...
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REHAB OMAR: (Singing in non-English language).
BEARDSLEY: ...Accompanying Umm Kulthum's powerful love songs that washed over the spellbound audience. Classical singer Rehab Omar impersonated the Egyptian diva in Paris.
OMAR: We often refer to her as the fourth pyramid, if you know, in Egypt, because she never left. I mean, she's gone, but her legacy is still living and will live forever.
BEARDSLEY: Omar says she's honored to perform in the city where Umm Kulthum gave her only concert outside the Arab world.
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BEARDSLEY: Archival footage shows her legendary performance in November 1967. Ecstatic fans from across France's large Arab diaspora thronged Paris' Olympia concert hall. It came just a month after Israel's stinging defeat of an Arab coalition in the Six-Day War. Farid Boudjellal illustrated a French graphic novel about the mythical concert.
FARID BOUDJELLAL: (Through interpreter) The Six-Day War was a humiliation for the Arab world, and Umm Kulthum helped people heal. She gave people dignity in the face of this trauma.
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BEARDSLEY: Putting on an Umm Kulthum record from his own collection, Boudjellal describes how some sold their valuables to buy a ticket. He says hundreds of French Jews who'd grown up with her music in North Africa also turned out.
BOUDJELLAL: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "It was a moment of reconciliation between classes, ethnicities and religions around the diva," he says. But Umm Kulthum was much more than a diva. Alain Weber, who organized the Philharmonie's anniversary concert program, says she was also an important political tool for Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was trying to build a new Egyptian identity after toppling the monarchy and British colonial rule.
ALAIN WEBER: And Nasser used her a lot for that, to give hopes to people. In that way, she became completely the symbol - identity symbol of Egypt.
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UNIDENTIFIED RADIO HOST: (Non-English language spoken).
BEARDSLEY: In the '50s and '60s, Kulthum's voice filled the airwaves from the Middle East to North Africa on Nasser's transnational Voice of the Arabs radio. The village girl who had once dressed as a boy to sing with her father at religious festivals also broke gender molds, says journalist Martine Lagardette. She co-authored the graphic novel on Umm Kulthum.
MARTINE LAGARDETTE: (Through interpreter) She was remarkable because she wasn't a militant feminist. She became president of the Egyptian Musicians' Union, which was extraordinary at the time. She was close to Nasser. She played a real diplomatic role.
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UMM KULTHUM: (Singing in non-English language).
BEARDSLEY: Umm Kulthum's voice was so powerful, she performed to large crowds without a microphone. Poets and musicians clamored to compose for her, says Weber. Her songs typically lasted an hour and could put her audience into a trance.
WEBER: Everything is focused on the poetry and the quality of the voice to bring you that kind of ecstasy, that kind of something that will move you completely inside.
BEARDSLEY: Her 1966 hit "Al-Atlal" - The Ruins - is based on a love poem. Give me liberty and break my chains. The song's lyrics took on political connotations after the defeat of the Six-Day War. Some consider it the Arab song par excellence.
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KULTHUM: (Singing in non-English language).
BEARDSLEY: Umm Kulthum recorded some 300 songs over her 60-year career. Five decades after her death, her ballads of love, loss and longing still drift from taxis and cafes across the Arab world, and fans still pack concert halls to hear her music in Paris. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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