Arlette al-Khoury photographed by Vahé. Circa 1940. (Credit: Al-Khoury family archives.)
I speak of a time beyond the memory of those under sixty, an era when Beirut still carried the charm of a postcard, and song soared above slate roofs and Eastern domes.Her name was Arlette, a name as delicate and sweet as a harp’s note, a gentle sound woven into the fabric of history. Born far from Lebanon, beneath the humid skies of Manaus, Brazil, in 1914, she would go on to carve her name in bold letters on the Lebanese opera stage, a first, and a promise etched in stone.From Brazil to Beirut: Birth of a VoiceArlette was a perfect alchemy of Latinity. Her father, Jose Aslan, a Lebanese coffee and rubber trader with distant Balkan roots; her mother, Louise Lemaitre, a Parisian milliner and poet at heart, cousin of the writer Jules Lemaitre. Her childhood unfolded in a home where fabrics met operas, and the aroma of coffee blended with...
I speak of a time beyond the memory of those under sixty, an era when Beirut still carried the charm of a postcard, and song soared above slate roofs and Eastern domes.Her name was Arlette, a name as delicate and sweet as a harp’s note, a gentle sound woven into the fabric of history. Born far from Lebanon, beneath the humid skies of Manaus, Brazil, in 1914, she would go on to carve her name in bold letters on the Lebanese opera stage, a first, and a promise etched in stone.From Brazil to Beirut: Birth of a VoiceArlette was a perfect alchemy of Latinity. Her father, Jose Aslan, a Lebanese coffee and rubber trader with distant Balkan roots; her mother, Louise Lemaitre, a Parisian milliner and poet at heart, cousin of the writer Jules Lemaitre. Her childhood unfolded in a home where fabrics met operas, and the aroma of coffee blended...