Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
Damascus, SANA-Nuhad Wadih Haddad, better known as Fayrouz, is a Lebanese singer and actress, born in 1935 in the Chouf district of Mount Lebanon, she is one of the oldest artists in the world and is considered one of the golden generation of the theater and music in Lebanon and one of the most famous Arab voices.
she was called in Lebanon as the seventh pillar of Baalbek.
Fairouz has a special place in the hearts and minds of the Syrians as she performed many concerts along with al-Rahbani family during the 70th of the last century at the theatre of Damascus International Fair.
She liked singing since she was young, she sang for love, children, simple life, her homeland Lebanon, and the Palestinian cause. She performed many concerts in many Arab and international cities , as she performed in 1999, a concert in the US Las Vegas city.
On May 15th, nearly 10,000 fans from all over the Western Hemisphere traveled to hear Fairouz at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas.
MGM Grand had invested more than $1.5 million to bring Fairouz and her 48-member band to Las Vegas, and had paid the costs of travel and advertising. Fayrouz’s Las Vegas premiere was advertised for several weeks at a fraction of the cost through full-page advertisements in major US dailies, and tickets ranged from $50 to $350.
The numbers of the audience were so great that those who could not enter the theater danced in the corridors leading to it on the rhythm of songs, and there was fear that the stands would collapse due to the heavy crowding.
The party was described as legendary and was similar to the famous English band, The Rolling Stones, which characterized by the huge crowds that came to listen.
Fayrouz’s voice remains one of the most beautiful voices that adorn our mornings so, in this context the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani said Fayrouz’s voice is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard in my life, and she is a message of love from another planet, and all names and expressions remain unable to describe it because it is the only source of goodness.
In that context, poet Mahmoud Darwish said: Fayrouz is a natural phenomenon, and her voice is greater than our memory, and she is not only the Lebanon’s ambassador to the stars, but she is a symbol of groups that refuse to die, and will not die.
Fedaa al-Rhayaih/ Mazen Eyon
