Context
The Nights of Ramadan, Reinette l’Oranaise
Y.Gastaut
Les Nuits du Ramadan, or the Nights of Ramadan, is a TV show created in 1991 by producer and presenter Djelloul Beghoura for the channel Antenne 2, which later became France 2,. This show gave the French public a chance to get familiar with the Arab-Muslim culture and showed the progressive openness towards diversity in French television. This show coincided with the organization of the “Belles Nuits du Ramadan” festival (the Beautiful Nights of Ramadan) encouraged by Loic Barrouk’s initiative in Paris, in 1997, then spreading to many French cities.
This brief coverage on January 25th, 1998, mentions the second edition of this festival, organized in a caravanserai setting at the Café de la Danse and paid tribute to the French-Arab music, created by the Jewish North-African communities during the French colonization. It also shined a light on Reinette l’Oranaise, one of the main figures of Arab-Andalus and Chaabi (popular) music, who gave then one of her last concerts. Her real name was Sultana Daoud, though she was known as Reinette el Wahrania and, even better, as Reineitte l’Oranaise (1915-1998) and she was a popular singer and spearhead of the Oran folklore.
She was born in Tiaret, in the Tell Atlas, to a Rabbi father of Moroccan origins and a Jewish Algerian mother, both of whom became French citizens after the 1870 Crémieux decree. After a badly-treated bout of smallpox, she went blind at the age of two. When she was very young, her mother took her to Massaoud Médioni, known as Saoud l’Oranais, a Sephardi Jew hawzi singer/violinist who owned a café in Oran, known as a gathering spot for music lovers, musicians and local celebrities. The maestro, whose nephew Maurice el Médioni, a pianist (born in 1928) and a great figure of Arab-Andalus music, shows up in the report, was confident in the young girl’s musical talent, initiated her to the craft and nicknamed her Reinette (little queen). She slowly became part of his orchestra while getting familiar with instruments such as the Goblet Drum (darbuka), the mandola and the Oud.
Bolstered by the experience, Reinette kicked off a long and glittering career at the age of 26: she became a famous singer by regularly performing on Radio-Alger, which played the best artists of the Andalusian repertoire. She also played with the Master of Chaabi music, Hadj El Anka, and practiced her craft at Muslim and Jewish celebrations. The forties and fifties, in Oran and all over Algeria, were the artist’s golden years.
Then came the independence and, like most Jews, Reinette left Algeria in 1962. Decolonization didn’t work in her favor and, far from Oran, in an apartment in Romainville, in the Parisian suburbs, she lived in some sort of exile, solitude and oblivion. Two decades later, in the mid-eighties, spurred by loyal fans, Reinette l’Oranaise went back to the stage and tasted success again in a French society more open to South-Mediterranean tunes and Arab-Andalus music.
She inspired a new generation of singers, such as Sapho (interviewed in this report) and became a legend of Judeo-Arab music, a legend on both sides of the Mediterranean. She became a Knight of the Arts and Letters in 1989 and was awarded the Académie Charles Cros prize while being considered an inevitable musical reference in Algeria. She died in Paris on November 17th, 1998 and is buried at the Pantin Israelite cemetery.
Discograpy-Filmography
- Reinette l'Oranaise - Trésors de la chanson judéo-arabe, CD, Mélodie Distribution, Michel Lévy / Bruno Barre.
- Reinette l'Oranaise - Mémoires. CD, Mélodie Distribution, Michel Lévy / Bruno Barre
- Reinette l'Oranaise, le port des amours réalisation Jacqueline Gozland, production Les films de la passion, 1991 - Edition DVD Arte Editions / Harmonia Mundi - 2009
