zad moultaka - Le Parvis

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flections, or even his obsessions, to an
improbable meeting place or synthesis.
Profoundly rooted in both the Arab world
and western culture, in this zajal formula,
which is so convivial, popular and
cultivated, he seeks matter to explore on
the level of form and writing. In this living
tradition he reads a combination of
multiple modes of expression and, in
particular, a very archaic form of opera
bringing together poetry, music, improvisation,
stage design and writing. In it
he also finds the echo of diverse contemporary
preoccupations, be it in the relation
to the text—in Berio, Aperghis,
Leroux, Nono…—or in current pop musical
forms such as rap or slam...
The zajal texts in dialectical Arabic, most
often improvised, are elaborated in relation
to their sonority, the language’s dynamic
and rhythmic pattern through the
organisation of the words, audacious
syntax, lexical choices, caesuras…
These games do not, for all that, overshadow
meaning—this is a thoroughly acrobatic
way of composing and reciting
poems in which dramatisation takes on
its full dramatic and musical sense.
Hence Zad Moultaka’s project to enrich
his thinking on contemporary forms of
language, start-ing from this specific
form and maintaining its substance,
taste for language, ambiance and primitive
dramaturgy.
It is a contemporary zajal that the composer
proposes here, questioning the col-
lective memory and the relationship between
tradition and modernity and initiating
a reflection on folk roots at the same
time as on the possibility of a form of
Arab opera.
Here we find the ingredients of popular
zajal: the banquet table, the gathering,
the rivals, the rhythm, the meter, the
cheeky humour of an original text; but
these elements are transmuted, staged, set
to music and treated spatially, in a pareddown,
minimalist and radical way.
As Bartók said with regard to folk music,
the composer absorbs it completely in its
essence and uses it like his musical mother
tongue… Zad Moultaka thereby obtains
a profound effect by using this
material, making this something that
goes to earth in peasant music resurface.
Accessible, amusing, nostalgic, poetic:
this is thus a vibrant homage to the tradition
that opens up new perspectives
to him.... This homage is particularly evident
in the second act in which the appearance
and disappearance of the faces
and voices of Zaghloul el Damour, Khalil
Roukouz and Zein Sh'eyb, amongst
others, bear poignant witness to the composer’s
admiration for those extraordinary
poets of the 1980s.
Synopsis
The libretto relates an episode in the life
of Assaad el-Khoury el-Feghali (1894-
1937), nicknamed ‘Chahrour el-Wadi’
(the blackbird of the valley), which took
place around 1909. As a young man, he
had left in search of adventure a few
years earlier and now returns to the village
in the Baabda region, rich in olive
trees and poets famous for its oratorical
jousts
This day a wedding is being celebrated,
and masked, he challenges his own father,
the priest Louis el-Feghali whose
real name was Khalil Semaan, a great but
somewhat whimsical master of zajal. Stupefied
by the stranger’s effrontery, the
latter accepts, and the ensuing joust results
in a delightfully dynamic and virtuoso
exchange. This evening,
re-transcribed by Nabil el-Feghali, Chahrour’s
son, was published recently by Joseph
D. Raidy Editions.
The villagers gather, and the site of the
‘battle’ is prepared in the main square.
The audience settles down with glasses
of arak and a few mezzes. For nearly two
hours, the priest puts the young man to
the test, throwing out increasingly difficult
rhetorical challenges. The tension
mounts, and the crowd is almost in a
trance. But the young man is a virtuoso
and succeeds with brio, combining poetic
dexterity with an extraordinary voice and
commanding unanimous admiration.
After a pause that Zad Moultaka turns
into a dream episode, the old jouster, following
a final lively, delightful exchange,
is going to abdicate and enjoins the
young man to show his face.
Revelation! It is in truth his own son
whom he has not recognised and whom
he will acknowledge as the one ‘who has
bewitched the Arabs’. Here we come
straight to the heart of the tale and its
symbolic epilogue.
A true story
In the facts, Assaad el-Khoury el-Feghali, having
played a highly important role in the
development of zajal, would later be dubbed
‘Emir of Zajal’ and ‘Chahrour el-Wadi’
by the public and by his peers It was he
who professionalised it, giving it strict
rules and creating the first zajal troupe
in 1928 along with Amin Ayyoub, Youssef
Abdallah el-Kehali and Elias el-Kahwaji.
Other poets—Anis Rouhana, Tanios
Abdou, Ali el-Hage and Emile Rizkallah—
would take up the torch and create other
companies.
The opera thus recounts an episode from
the biography of he who renewed the
style by introducing social subjects, patriotic
themes, a political and social dimension
in his challenges. He took it out
of the village to make it known in the
Arab countries and especially in Alexandria
and at the Cairo Opera, thereby
lending it credibility and a particular
brilliance.
In the Forties, the Lebanese state appeal-ed
to zajal companies for their help in cementing
the feeling of national belonging
by organising festivities throughout the
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