Question

17. Why did Umm Kulthum carefully guard her privacy?

18. How did Kulthum support Egyptian revolutionary activities in the 1930s?

19. How did the Egyptian revolution of the late 1950s threaten Umm Kulthum’s career?

20. How did political leader Gamal Abdel Nasser support Kultum?

21. Why was Umm Kulthum’s collaboration with her formal rival, Mohammed Abd el-Wahhab, a significant event?

Answer 1

• 17) Radio broadcasting allowed her to count among her most devoted listeners hundreds of thousands of Egyptians and Arabs who had never seen her and would not dream of attending a public concert.
• While valuing the live audience as integral to her artistry, Umm Kulthum cultivated as her audience all listeners, including the vast numbers sitting in homes and coffee shops near a radio. She used broadcast interviews as well to establish rapport with the radio audience and to identify herself as a familiar figure to them.
• Her command of the art of the interview, and hence the projection of a particular persona, was hard-won during the 1920s and 1930s. A number unfortunate blunders with journalists left her wary of uncontrolled contact with representatives of the media.
• She began to court selected journalists to whom she would grant interviews and who would, in turn, support her in print. She guarded her private life carefully, cultivated friends who did the same, and would speak to reporters only on topics of her own choosing, promulgating carefully expressed opinions and views of herself.
• 20)In the late 1930s, Umm Kulthum scored an enormous coup in persuading Egyptian Radio to broadcast her concerts live. By then, she had established monthly concerts on Thursday nights in major Cairo theaters that attracted large audiences and lasted throughout the season, that is, from November to June of each year.
• Friday being the Muslim day of rest, the Thursday-night events occupied what was considered prime time. This concert series lasted for more than thirty-five years and became that by which she was known throughout the Arab world. Eventually, stories were told about life in the Arabic-speaking world coming to a stop for these monthly concerts.
• Radio remained a critically important patron of musicians throughout World War II, when material for the production of recordings became scarce and communications with European production facilities interrupted.
• It took on greater social importance than ever following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 under the government of President Gamal Abdel Nasser who supported the broadcast of entertainment to ameliorate the daily stresses of economic difficulty and who strengthened broadcasting facilities as a means of advancing his political agenda.
  
• Due to time limit,remaining questions can be asked as another question,they will be answered,thankyou for your cooperation