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Baalbeck '98 Trivia
Fairuz is back in Baalbeck. Last time she was there was in 1973 performing 'Qasidat 7ob/Love Poem' which was written by the Rahbani Brothers. Joining Fairuz then were Wadi3 Elsafy and late Nasri Shammesdin.
Fairuz was going to perform in Baalbeck '97 but disagreements between the festival organizers and Mansour Rahbani on the costs of the presentation (about 600 thousand Dollars) held it from happening.
In '98, the festival organizers realized how important Fairuz is to Baalbeck. They proposed that they (Mansour and Fairuz) either make a new score or perform from a number of old classics. They Chose the second option mainly because time couldn't have helped to write a new one. The performances are taken from three musical plays 'Jisr Al-Kamar' 1962,'Jibal As-sawan' 1969 and 'Natorit A-mafati7' 1972.
There are also five new songs one written by Mansour Rahbani called 'Akhr Mara Ganitlek" (Poem), another by Elias Rahbani called 'Maak' (Poem) and three others by Ziad Rahbani, 'Eshtatlek', 'Salm Li 3alaih' and 'Ya Saby'
Costs of the events are more than one million Dollars.
Songs from the old musical included 'Jibal Asswan', 'Sa3dni', 'Watani', 'Waynon', 'Ya Shames Amasakin' and 'Ya 7orii'.
Old songs were performed in playback. The reason as Mansour and Elias have said was due to the difficulties that would encounter a live show especially on Baalbeck's stage which would make a lot of distortion because of the wind. They also claimed that all the musicals they performed since the 60s were in playback. However, the dialogue and the new songs were performed live.
Ziad threatened to leave the festival if his songs were not performed live. He also demanded that he accompanies Fairouz by playing on the piano. (He left the festivals and did not send the new songs although the organizers waited for him and/or the songs to arrive until the last minute.) More on the playback problems.
There were picture slides of Assy Rahbany, Philemon Wehbe and Nasri Shammseddine projected on a big screen.