The diva Feyrouz attending the funeral of her son, Ziad Rahbani. (Credit: Mohammad Yassin/L'Orient Today)
Around her, a crowd of admirers raises smartphones in reverence, their flashes illuminating a figure who has long sought to avoid the spotlight. Her red hair covered by a veil, dark glasses perched on her nose, Fairuz appears quietly, solemnly, by her daughter Rima’s side, receiving an emotional rain of applause. It is 11:30 a.m., and time seems to stand still around the Church of the Dormition in Bikfaya-Mheidetheh. Fairuz is here.The star of the East, the icon — already in mourning after losing her husband and daughter too soon — had come to bid farewell to a son with whom her bond had been intensely close and often tumultuous. More on this Ziad and Fairuz: A conflicted bond rooted in absolute love In the same heavy silence — now echoing the sorrow of a fragmented country — she stands in the emptied church, at the family’s...
Around her, a crowd of admirers raises smartphones in reverence, their flashes illuminating a figure who has long sought to avoid the spotlight. Her red hair covered by a veil, dark glasses perched on her nose, Fairuz appears quietly, solemnly, by her daughter Rima’s side, receiving an emotional rain of applause. It is 11:30 a.m., and time seems to stand still around the Church of the Dormition in Bikfaya-Mheidetheh. Fairuz is here.The star of the East, the icon — already in mourning after losing her husband and daughter too soon — had come to bid farewell to a son with whom her bond had been intensely close and often tumultuous. More on this Ziad and Fairuz: A conflicted bond rooted in absolute love In the same heavy silence — now echoing the sorrow of a fragmented country — she stands in the emptied church, at the...
