Lebanese Nights (Al-Layali Lubnaniyah)
While Baalbeck welcomed artists from around the world, it also became a stage on which Lebanese cultural identity was imagined, performed, and shared. The Lebanese Nights began in 1957, only one year after the Festival was founded, with the Rahbani Brothers and Fairuz. From then on, a Lebanese creation was presented almost every year at the Acropolis, bringing together music, theatre, poetry, dance, and folklore, and transforming Lebanese cultural traditions into innovative forms of artistic expression.
The 1957 festival also brought together the Rahbani Brothers, Fairuz, Toufic El Bacha, Zaki Nassif, and Philemon Wehbe, associated with what was known as “Usbat al-Khamsa” (Group of Five). Their work, together with Fairuz, Sabah, Nasri Shamseddine, Walid Gholmieh, Romeo Lahoud, Caracalla, and many others, helped shape a distinctive Lebanese artistic movement.
For generations of Lebanese artists, Baalbeck became more than a performance venue: it was a place where careers were launched, developed, and brought to wider audiences, and where performing at the Festival became a significant professional milestone.
The legacy of the Lebanese Nights survives in photographs, manuscripts, musical scores, recordings, and press accounts preserved in the Archives and Special Collections of the American University of Beirut. Manoug Alemian's photographs, together with the works of composers such as Zaki Nassif and Walid Gholmieh, reveal how Baalbeck became a meeting place for artistic creation, cultural heritage, and collective memory. Through these records, the Lebanese Nights remain a testament to the Festival's enduring role in nurturing Lebanese artistic expression.