Umm Kulthum

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Umm Kulthum around 1968

Umm Kulthum (* between 1898 and 1910, probably on May 4, 1904 in Tammai az-Zahaira ; † February 3, 1975 in Cairo ; Arabic أمّ كلثوم, DMG ʾUmm Kulṯūm , alternative spellings including Oum or Om Kalsoum and Umm Kultum ; actually ʾUmm Kulṯūm Fātima ʾIbrāhīm as-Sayyid al-Baltaǧī ) was an Egyptian singer and musician . Her fame in the Arab world is comparable to that of Maria Callas and the Beatles in the western world. She was a close friend and supporter of the officer and later President Gamal Abdel Nasser since childhood.

Life

Childhood and youth

Umm Kulthum grew up with two siblings in a poor family in a small village in the governorate of ad-Daqahliyya . Their devout and devout father was an imam of the local mosque . At her insistence, her parents allowed her to attend the Koran school.

In order to supplement the family income, her father sang at religious celebrations and as a Koran reciter, accompanied by a small orchestra and his son. When Umm Kulthum was around five years old, he began to secretly imitate her father, when he noticed this, he had her sing to him and noticed that she had already mastered many of his pieces. On the same day she sang in public for the first time at a party; as a result, her father taught her singing together with her brother and she strengthened her father's ensemble.

The ensemble gained increasing regional fame, not least through Umm Kulthum's singing, and toured large parts of the Nile Delta. As she got older, however, her father got into a moral dilemma: Umm Kulthum's appearance in front of a male audience was no longer compatible with the rules of propriety. In order not to lose his daughter as a singer, he made her wear boy clothes for several years, with which she deceived the audience. Due to her fame, however, this was soon no longer a secret and when her father realized this, he forbade her further appearances and asked her to find a husband. Umm Kulthum rejected all applicants, however, as no one was willing to let them continue to sing and perform. At the same time, the engagements for the father's ensemble without Umm Kulthum fell drastically and after a while her father gave in - she appeared again.

Cairo

For many years this “career” was limited to her home region. In 1920, however, she met Sheikh Zakariyya Ahmad , to whom she sang; he said he "has not been able to forget her voice since then"; he got her engagements in Cairo and tried to get her there. However, her family resisted this request. Ahmad and Umm Kulthum met again and he composed for them. Later the two fell out over the royalties for the compositions and Ahmad sued Umm Kulthum for this, and their friendship broke up.

In 1923 she happened to meet Sheikh Abu l-Ila , whom she admired , at the time the “leading religious singer in Egypt and the main exponent of the classical Islamic singing tradition”. Abu l-Ila taught her and above all taught her “how to understand the meaning of words in Tones expressed ". He again suggested that she move to Cairo, since only there could her talent grow appropriately. After a serious argument with her father, he finally gave in, and she moved to Cairo with her father and brother.

Her rural and conservative singing style was considered outdated and outdated in Cairo, her voice and her appearance lacked polish. With financial support from her father, she took singing lessons, learned to play the Ud , renewed her repertoire and began recording for the first time in 1924/1925 at the latest. In 1928 she was already considered one of the leading singers in town.

In May 1934 Umm Kulthum inaugurated the first Egyptian radio station, Radio Cairo .

International career

In 1932 her first international tour took her to Damascus , Baghdad , Beirut and Tripoli , among others , and in 1935 she began a temporary film career. The 1940s and 1950s are generally considered to be the “golden age” of her singing, at the same time she was able to gain complete artistic control over her career and to take on important functions in the music business.

Funeral of Umm Kulthum, 1975

Over the decades Umm Kulthum successfully continued her career, her fame grew steadily and she gradually became a national symbol. After the Egyptian defeat in the Six Day War , she toured many Arab countries and performed twice at the Olympia in Paris, her only appearance in the West during her entire career. She donated the proceeds from this tour to the reconstruction of the Egyptian army. After an almost sixty-year stage career and hundreds of recordings, she died of nephritis in 1975 after having had similar health problems, for example with liver and gall bladder, since the 1930s.

At her funeral, several million mourners gathered in the streets of Cairo, the coffin with their corpse was removed from the actual porters and passed in numerous turns through the crowded streets of Cairo for three hours.

literature

  • Gabriele Braune: Umm Kultūm: An Age of Music in Egypt. The modern Egyptian music of the 20th century. Lang, Frankfurt 1994, ISBN 3-631-47145-9 .
  • Virginia Danielson: The Voice of Egypt - Umm Kulthūm, Arabic Song, and Egyptian Society in the Twentieth Century. University Press, Chicago 1997, ISBN 0-226-13611-6 .
  • Stefanie Gsell: Umm Kulthum - personality and fascination of the Egyptian singer. Lang, Frankfurt 1994, ISBN 3-631-47145-9 .

Movie

  • The Diva of Cairo, Oum Kalthoum. (OT: Oum Kalthoum, la voix du Caire. ) Documentary film, France, 2017, 52:19 min., Script and director: Xavier Villetard, production: Illégitime Défense, arte France, first broadcast: June 21, 2017 by arte, summary by ARD , among others with Robert Solé , musician colleagues and relatives.
  • Looking for Oum Kulthum (Looking for Oum Kulthum) , feature film, Germany / Austria / Italy / Morocco, 2017, director: Shirin Neshat , screenplay: Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari, premiere at the 74th Venice Film Festival

Web links

Commons : Umm Kulthum  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Diva of Cairo, Oum Kalthoum. In: ARD / arte , June 21, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b c d Stefanie Gsell: Umm Kulthum - personality and fascination of the Egyptian singer. Lang, Frankfurt 1994, ISBN 3-631-47145-9 .
  3. ↑ Stefanie Gsell: Umm Kulthum - personality and fascination of the Egyptian singer. Lang, Frankfurt 1994, ISBN 3-631-47145-9 , p. 167.
  4. ↑ Stefanie Gsell: Umm Kulthum - personality and fascination of the Egyptian singer. Lang, Frankfurt 1994, ISBN 3-631-47145-9 , p. 166.
  5. ^ Ghada Talhami in: Historical Dictionary of Women in the Middle East and North Africa . Lanham, Maryland, Scarecrow Press. 2013, ISBN 978-0-8108-6858-8 .
personal data
SURNAME Umm Kulthum
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Umm Kulthum Fatima Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Baltaji; Oum Kalsoum
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Egyptian singer
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Tammai az-Zahaira , Nile Delta, Egypt
DATE OF DEATH 3rd February 1975
Place of death Cairo , Egypt