CAIRO — Algerian singer Warda, whose powerful voice range earned her iconic status throughout the Arab world, died of a heart attack late on Thursday aged 72, her family said.
Known throughout the region as Warda Al-Jazairia (Warda the Algerian), she performed for presidents and popular audiences, reinventing herself throughout the decades to appeal to old and young alike.
Algerian Culture Minister Khalifa Toumi stated that the death of “the Algerian rose” meant “one of the most beautiful voices of Algeria and the Arab world has just become silent for ever.”
She “has gone leaving behind her a deafening silence and a profound sadness,” Toumi said in a message of condolences published by the APS news agency.
Warda, whose name means “Rose” in Arabic, will be buried in the El Alia cemetery east of Algiers on Saturday, after her body is flown home from Egypt following prayers in that country, according to Egyptian officials and APS.
“A military plane has landed at Cairo airport and will take off for Algeria with the body at 2:00 P.M. (1200 GMT),” airport officials said.
Born in 1939 in France to an Algerian father and Lebanese mother, Al-Jazairia started singing in France before moving to Egypt in 1960 where her career took off.
Warda had music lessons from renowned Egyptian singers, including Oum Kalthoum, Mohamed Abdelwahab and Abdelhalim Hafez, before performing her own songs to music composed by her Tunisian mentor, Sadeq Thuraya. She became known in the Arab world for her patriotic songs during the Algerian war of independence from France and began to work in Egypt, with the likes of Abdelwahab.
After Algerian independence, she returned home and married in 1962. Ten years later, she returned to Egypt and performed some of her best-known songs and took roles in several films. The finest years of her career followed her meeting with composer Baligh Hamdi, who eventually became her second husband. She sold millions of albums, with a repertoire of more than 300 songs. — Agencies