Her Highness The Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III welcomes actress Shirley MacLaine to her villa Yakymour in Le Cannet, during the Cannes Film Festival of 1967.
Begum Aga Khan
Quote of the day
Love Is What we’re Born With, Fear Is What We Learn Here
Begum Om Habibeh Mata Salamat Aga Khan
New Years Eve, 1956
Monaco, New Year’s Eve 1956, Her Highness The Begum Aga Khan III and Aristotle Onassis attend a party organised by Monte Carlo SBM to ring in the New Year. As Jean-Gabriel Domergue’s posters said at the time: “Les gens chic sont l’hiver à Monte-Carlo” (“In winter chic people are in Monte-Carlo”).
The Begum Aga Khan III and Aristotle Onassis at New Years Party, Monaco, 1956
Yakymour is wishing you a wonderful and healthy new year. May all optimistic things in life will be yours!
by Jean Amr
Aga Khan III, Quote of The Day
Sultan Sir Mohammd Shah Aga Khan III and Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan
I have at last been granted the real and wonderful haven of finding in and with my wife a true union of mind and soul
Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah, Aga Khan III, in his Memoirs ‘World Enough & Time’, page 275
Quote of the day, Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan
We should take care of eachother, everybody should be loved! …we are here on earth to do good, and not to harm or judge people, so lets love!
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan at Yakymour
Hélène Rochas and Begum Aga Khan at Le Bal du Centenaire
May 27, 1966: Hélène Rochas, hostess of Le Bal du Centenaire de Monaco, draws a curtsy to welcome Her Highness The Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III. Her Highness arrives in a gown by costumier André Levasseur and a diamond tiara. The surrounding guests applaud at Her entrance
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III is making her entrée at Le Bal du Centenaire de Monaco (Privat collection)(Click photo to enlarge).
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III is welcomed by Hélène Rochas at Le Bal du Centenaire de Monaco (Privat collection)(Click photo to enlarge).
The Begum and the Cannes Film Festival, 1966
Today, 50 years ago, Sophia Loren and the President of the Cannes Film Festival Jury (right), visits Her Highness The Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III and her father Adrian Labrousse (left) at the Begum‘s villa Yakymour, Le Cannet, on May 18, 1966.
Her Higness La Bégum used to assemble every year the members of the Cannes film festival jury, and many national and international movie stars.
Mata Salamat’s Deep Friendship
After being elected Miss Lyon in 1929, then Miss France in Paris in 1930, beauty queen and a representatieve of France, Yvette Labrousse traveled to many countries around the world. She found herself particulary taken by Egypt and, in the late thirdies she moved to Egypt. There Yvette Labrousse met her future husband, the Sultan Aga Khan III, 48th Imam of the Nizari Shia Ismaili community, and they fell in love at first sight and married on 9 October 1944 in Switzerland. Then she took the name of Om Habibeh (Little Mother of the Beloved) and became Begum, fully Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan.
They settled in the Avenue Victoria villa ‘Yakymour‘ at Le Cannet, in the hills above Cannes. Her Higness La Bégum, who was nterested in the arts including classical music, opera and ballet, used to assemble the members of the Cannes film festival jury, and many national and international artists and movie stars. Some of them became friends for live. Like Kees van Dongen, Jean Cocteau, Sophia Loren, Maurice Chevalier, Gina Lollobrigida and Marlene Dietrich
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan and painter Kees van Dongen. She wasn’t only Kees van Dongen’s muse, but with her husband’s encouragement, she also developed an active interest in painting and sculpture. Kees van Dongen made several portraits of Begum Om Habibeh and her husband.
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan had a big heart for everybody. Also for people outside the Shia Ismaili community. She was dearly loved by her people because of her generosity to the poor, childern, women and the elderly, and, by her own husband as well. No matter what kind of religion, man or women, or even sexual oriantation, she was véry openminded and loyal. Yakymour and Nour el-Salam her home in Egypt, were both an open house.
Her Highness The Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan and Jean Cocteau take part in la Bataille des Fleurs at la Promenade de la Croisette in Cannes on May 3, 1954. Her Highness The Begum Om Habibeh had a special relation with Jean Cocteau and his partner Jean Marais. They visit eachother often, and had a special and deep frienship.
Her Highness The Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan and Jean Cocteau take part in la Bataille des Fleurs at la Promenade de la Croisette in Cannes on May 3, 1954.
Marlene Dietrich, Jean Cocteau and Her Highness The Begum Aga Khan III attend the dress rehearsal of Gilbert Bécaud’s ‘L’Opéra d’Aran’ at le Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris on October 26, 1962 (Click photo to enlarge).
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan and Curd Jürgens
During the Third Reich, Munich was slated to get another opera house. With Clemens Krauss, who served in the joint capacity of general manager and general music director, Munich was able to develop even further despite oppression and war. Clemens Krauss supplied highlights both in his career and in the history of the National Theatre with the world premières of three works by his friend Richard Strauss, three fantastic anachronisms which nevertheless became artistic reality: Friedenstag in 1938, Verklungene Feste in 1941, and Capriccio in 1942. During an Allied bombardment in the night of October 3 / 4, the National Theatre was turned into an eerie ruin. Further damage and destruction as well as the proclamation of ‘total war’ silenced the State Opera for a while.
Her Highness Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan at the Gala Premiere of the reconstructed München Opera House, Germany, with good friends Curd Jürgens and his wife Simone Bicheron, November 23, 1963. (pictures by C.P.H. van Heulen) (pictures from private collection).
The arduous tasks of restoring the theatre to life were assumed by General Manager Georg Hartmann and his General Music Director Georg Solti. After they had successfully introduced works by Paul Hindemith and Heinrich Sutermeister, and Werner Egk had established himself in 1948 with his Faust ballet Abraxas, Hartmann and Solti put on the first post-war Munich Opera Festival in 1950, creating on a firm foundation to pass on to their successors.
Her Highness Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan
Rudolf Hartmann served as general manager for fifteen years from 1952 to 1967, working side-by-side with general music directors Rudolf Kempe, Ferenc Fricsay and Joseph Keilberth. Two significant events occurred during the Hartmann era: the return to the restored Cuvilliés Theatre with Le nozze di Figaro in 1958 and the reopening of the National Theatre on November 21, 1963. With the aid of the ‘Friends of the National Theatre’ it rose in old classicistic glory like a phoenix from the ashes in accordance the plans of Gerhard Graubner and Karl Fischer.
Her Highness Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan and and Curd Jürgens
Her Highness Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan and Curd Jürgens
Her Highness Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan and Simone Bicheron wife of Curd Jürgens
Yakymour 