Tragic diva’s flame continues to burn bright
Singer Dalida’s life is being celebrated with a special evening of music and food in Dubai tonight, reports Saeed Saeed
One of the Arab world’s first international superstars will be celebrated in Parisian style tonight.
The classy Dubai French eatery Bistrot Bagatelle will be paying homage to the late Dalida in a special edition of their weekly gastro-music night Le Mardi C’est Permis.
The menu will include French classics such as beef tartare, salade Landaise, gnocchi à la Parisienne and sea bass.
As well as enjoying selections from the menu, the crowd will be serenaded by French singer Anna (real name Anabelle Ventri), who will be flying in from Paris to belt out Dalida favourites, including Paroles, Paroles, Parle Plus Bas and J’attendrai.
Despite the fact that Dalida passed away 30 years ago, Anna says that the musician remains a part of French popular culture.
She points to the recent biopic, with Italian actress Sveva Alviti in the lead role, and occasional television tributes for keeping the flame alive.
“She is still very popular and famous in France, and there are talent shows such as Star Academy and The Voice that still do Dalida songs,” she says.
“There is also a street under her name in Paris called Place Dalida, which is in her former neighbourhood and houses a bronze bust of her. It shows how the impact that she left on France and the French.”
Born in 1933 and raised in Cairo to parents who immigrated from Italy, Dalida was exposed to music from a young age, often accompanying her father to Cairo Opera House where he was the in-house orchestra’s first violinist.
With her mother, a gifted seamstress, Dalida ventured into fashion world, and by the age of 20, she had won the Miss Egypt pageant.
Her popularity resulted in her move to music, her first hit was Bambino, in 1956, her orchestral cover of the Neapolitan folk song Guaglione.
She established herself as bona fide star the following year with Gondolier, a French classic that married Dalida’s untrained yet exotically husky voice with baroque strings and a waltz rhythm.
Dalida’s fame extended beyond Europe with shows at New York City’s Carnegie Hall and South America. According to fan site Dalida Forever, the singer performed three dates in Abu Dhabi in March 1981.
Her success with music was tragically not reflected in her personal life. She was also renowned for a string of turbulent relationships, which eventually contributed to her retiring from performance in 1983. She would take her own life four years later.
Anna says that her mother is a big Dalida fan, so her songs were on constant rotation in the household.
“I grew up on her songs and memorised [them] by heart,” she says. “As I grew up, I researched more about her life and the music, and it is from there that my love for her music really grew.”
Bistrot Bagatelle’s DJ Starks, who will be accompanying Anna, recalls a similar childhood in France.
The DJ credits Dalida for injecting small facets of Arab culture into France’s mainstream.
“Her voice is unique. You can recognise all her origins in her voice – that Arabic, Italian and French – and she brought a lot when it comes to introducing the Arabic music style to France,” he says.
“For example, after her [1977 song] Salama Ya Salama, French people know that phrase because of Dalida and they sing it.”
Anna says it is the rawness of her voice that pulls people in.
“She had a typical voice, that slight mix of Arabic, Italian and French, but it could bring joy, happiness, sadness or drama,” she says.
“Her songs, I find, can make you cry, dance and feel so many emotions at once.”
Starks says that Le Mardi C’est Permis won’t be a club night – instead, it is more “a fine-dining restaurant with music”.
“Dalida incarnates love, romance, glamour; and we want accompany that with some tracks which have the ability to make you feel like dancing at the end of your dinner.”
Le Mardi C’est Permis is being held tonight, 8pm until late, at Bistrot Bagatelle at the Fairmont Dubai on Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai (reservation@ bistrotbagatelledubai.com)