The musical depicts Egypt during a period of cultural fertility and seismic sociopolitical change. It responds to a question posed by the ethnomusicologist Virginia Danielson, who wrote a biography of Umm Kulthum: “Is it possible that 50 years in Arab societies, where women appear to outsiders to be oppressed, silent and veiled, could be represented by the life and work of a woman?” And not just a woman, but one whose possible lesbianism and rejection of gender norms raised a few eyebrows in her lifetime.
