Post by davidhr on May 31, 2011 8:11:37 GMT -5
Another quiet week for Lara publicly, although the replay of Lara’s Moscow concert got some publicity in the French media, sparked perhaps by its appearance on youtube. In a pitiblog article, Julien Piraud, who used to be a prominent player in Lara’s websites (including the official one), found positive signs in Lara’s recent activities. Here is a translation of his relevant comments:
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Belgian singer Lara Fabian traveled the world a few weeks ago to promote her new project "Mademoiselle Zhivago", a concept album featuring tracks in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian!
Lara Fabian appeared in particular in November at the Kremlin in Moscow before a packed and a very quiet audience, just impressed by the careful staging of the spectacle of the singer. When you see the quality of the delivery, staging, orchestration with all the musicians, stage costumes of the singer, one can only be disappointed with her performance in France! It will be necessary therefore to go into the “countries of the east” to discover a diva Lara Fabian, who can rival without blushing Celine Dion or Barbra Streisand, her idols.
Now watch the entire concert in the Kremlin by Lara Fabian!
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qR84ux0UBT0
This project "Miss Zhivago" could be presented to us this year. For now the singer focuses on the musical "1939" in which she will be appearing on 29 and 30 June at the Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell of Paris.
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It would seem as if the French media is a bit bemused and somewhat impressed by Lara’s push into the eastern countries (and, in effect, away from them). It’s a truism that you never miss something as much as when it’s gone.
Some more information has surfaced with respect to the ‘1939’ musical: it will indeed tour throughout France, as was suspected. According to its website,
www.musicalsineurope.com/France/1939.htm
it will play in some 16 different French venues. The article makes it clear, however, that Lara will participate in only the first three performances in Paris in June.
There has been considerable speculation concerning which songs Lara will perform at the scheduled charity concert in Charleroi, Belgium in September. The poster for the performance can be found at:
www.fondationpapillon.be/accueil.html
and it lists the show as ‘Lara’s first concert before her Russian tour’. That has led fans to believe it will be a ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ concert, and if so, might indicate a greater willingness on Lara’s part to release the album in France. The fans also noted that they would expect Lara to perform the songs without lip-synching. We’ll see what develops; not that this is necessarily important, but the show itself has still not been officially confirmed by Lara’s people.
Back in the ‘countries of the east’, Igor Krutoi, honored at a festival in Kiev recently, was quoted in Izvestia as saying (in translation), “I often visit in Kiev. Recently, with Ukrainian director Alan Badoev, we filmed with Lara Fabian, with my music. In mid-June, I plan to complete this work and we will decide where to show the picture. " If this is true, then perhaps its failure to appear at Cannes might be related to delays in completion.
There is also a new report that Lara will be presenting the ‘Mlle. Zhivago” concert with Igor Krutoi at the Central Concert Hall in Astana, Kazakhstan, July 5th. If so, Lara may well be spending much of her summer in these countries, given that she had already indicated she was buying a home in Kiev or Moscow.
And it was reported that Lara had recorded a performance for the “Department of Music Faculty of the Yerevan Pedagogical University Culture" in Armenia. Its goal is to encourage the use of traditional folk instruments in that country. A video is being prepared with contributions from different performers, Lara among them, scheduled to be aired September 21st. As of yet there is no verification of this, and we know Lara’s name is often tossed around for effect. But there is no doubt that an increasing percentage of these news updates is concerned with Lara’s continued activities in Asia; combined with Lara’s upcoming fall tour of Russia, one might say the whole year will have been devoted to this focus. It has clearly passed the stage of a ‘mere flirtation’.
Now for the latest installment from the ‘biography’ of Lara, pp. 126-130. This section is devoted to Lara’s illness in 2004…
**Following the release of the second single (‘The Last Goodbye) from ”A Wonderful Life”, Lara was set for a summer tour across France and Belgium. [Note – this already was muddled thinking, given that English language albums normally do not do well in those countries. Wouldn’t a summer tour in English speaking countries have been more appropriate?]
**But the first sign of health problems appeared: a persistent fatigue forced her to cancel her concert in Nandrin, Belgium in the beginning of July.
**Nevertheless, Lara quickly got back on her feet, for she had engagements in Moscow, Libya and French Polynesia that she wanted to fulfill. She even appeared on a Star Academy show, but looked bloated, inflated to the point that she was asked if she was pregnant.
**Shortly thereafter she was forced to cancel the summer shows in the south of France and in Belgium. To do that without penalty requires a doctor’s certificate, which she obtained, so something was clearly wrong.
**The origin of the illness is not clear. It appears that at the beginning of the year, Lara had contracted chicken pox, and one of its lasting effects (in adults, especially) is an enormous fatigue. She also was involved in many changes – she had to pack up and move from her house in Montreal and re-establish herself in Belgium, she had just separated professionally from her French producer, Jean-Claude Camus, she was fulfilling numerous far-flung engagements, finishing her English album [and fighting with Sony] – a case of burnout was certainly suspected.
**In addition, we know that benign tumors were found in her liver and kidneys, and her blood was affected, with much pain. Lara now downplays the importance of all this, saying it wasn’t grave, but the doctors at the time were not so convinced. According to the book, she was given strong chemicals and other conventional treatments.
**Lara also felt that this was a ‘mind-body’ problem, and engaged in a practice called ‘total biology’ which involved questioning herself about the course of the illness, about why certain organs were affected, of what her psychic malady might be. Lara has said subsequently she had to face her psychic pain squarely, and let go of her anger over the various ‘wrongs’ she felt had been done to her, before she could be cured. She had to replace the negativity with a more positive approach.
**Lara now does not want to talk about this malady– she believes if she does so, it will bring it back into her consciousness, give it more power, and make it more likely to return. She does say that she got a full appreciation for her vulnerability – that she was indeed ‘breakable’.
All this is past history now, and Lara’s health is no longer really a concern, but at the time no one knew what was going on, or how serious it was. We still really don’t. But modern medicine is clearly showing how being overly stressed impacts one’s health, and Lara had been undergoing that for a several years by the summer of 2004. [Agreeing, Lara further says that the greatest stress was actually moving away from Canada.] When we see her in all these new ventures, it’s good to keep in mind how courageous this really is, given how vulnerable she (and all of us) really are, and applaud her for taking chances.
David
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Belgian singer Lara Fabian traveled the world a few weeks ago to promote her new project "Mademoiselle Zhivago", a concept album featuring tracks in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian!
Lara Fabian appeared in particular in November at the Kremlin in Moscow before a packed and a very quiet audience, just impressed by the careful staging of the spectacle of the singer. When you see the quality of the delivery, staging, orchestration with all the musicians, stage costumes of the singer, one can only be disappointed with her performance in France! It will be necessary therefore to go into the “countries of the east” to discover a diva Lara Fabian, who can rival without blushing Celine Dion or Barbra Streisand, her idols.
Now watch the entire concert in the Kremlin by Lara Fabian!
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qR84ux0UBT0
This project "Miss Zhivago" could be presented to us this year. For now the singer focuses on the musical "1939" in which she will be appearing on 29 and 30 June at the Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell of Paris.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It would seem as if the French media is a bit bemused and somewhat impressed by Lara’s push into the eastern countries (and, in effect, away from them). It’s a truism that you never miss something as much as when it’s gone.
Some more information has surfaced with respect to the ‘1939’ musical: it will indeed tour throughout France, as was suspected. According to its website,
www.musicalsineurope.com/France/1939.htm
it will play in some 16 different French venues. The article makes it clear, however, that Lara will participate in only the first three performances in Paris in June.
There has been considerable speculation concerning which songs Lara will perform at the scheduled charity concert in Charleroi, Belgium in September. The poster for the performance can be found at:
www.fondationpapillon.be/accueil.html
and it lists the show as ‘Lara’s first concert before her Russian tour’. That has led fans to believe it will be a ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ concert, and if so, might indicate a greater willingness on Lara’s part to release the album in France. The fans also noted that they would expect Lara to perform the songs without lip-synching. We’ll see what develops; not that this is necessarily important, but the show itself has still not been officially confirmed by Lara’s people.
Back in the ‘countries of the east’, Igor Krutoi, honored at a festival in Kiev recently, was quoted in Izvestia as saying (in translation), “I often visit in Kiev. Recently, with Ukrainian director Alan Badoev, we filmed with Lara Fabian, with my music. In mid-June, I plan to complete this work and we will decide where to show the picture. " If this is true, then perhaps its failure to appear at Cannes might be related to delays in completion.
There is also a new report that Lara will be presenting the ‘Mlle. Zhivago” concert with Igor Krutoi at the Central Concert Hall in Astana, Kazakhstan, July 5th. If so, Lara may well be spending much of her summer in these countries, given that she had already indicated she was buying a home in Kiev or Moscow.
And it was reported that Lara had recorded a performance for the “Department of Music Faculty of the Yerevan Pedagogical University Culture" in Armenia. Its goal is to encourage the use of traditional folk instruments in that country. A video is being prepared with contributions from different performers, Lara among them, scheduled to be aired September 21st. As of yet there is no verification of this, and we know Lara’s name is often tossed around for effect. But there is no doubt that an increasing percentage of these news updates is concerned with Lara’s continued activities in Asia; combined with Lara’s upcoming fall tour of Russia, one might say the whole year will have been devoted to this focus. It has clearly passed the stage of a ‘mere flirtation’.
Now for the latest installment from the ‘biography’ of Lara, pp. 126-130. This section is devoted to Lara’s illness in 2004…
**Following the release of the second single (‘The Last Goodbye) from ”A Wonderful Life”, Lara was set for a summer tour across France and Belgium. [Note – this already was muddled thinking, given that English language albums normally do not do well in those countries. Wouldn’t a summer tour in English speaking countries have been more appropriate?]
**But the first sign of health problems appeared: a persistent fatigue forced her to cancel her concert in Nandrin, Belgium in the beginning of July.
**Nevertheless, Lara quickly got back on her feet, for she had engagements in Moscow, Libya and French Polynesia that she wanted to fulfill. She even appeared on a Star Academy show, but looked bloated, inflated to the point that she was asked if she was pregnant.
**Shortly thereafter she was forced to cancel the summer shows in the south of France and in Belgium. To do that without penalty requires a doctor’s certificate, which she obtained, so something was clearly wrong.
**The origin of the illness is not clear. It appears that at the beginning of the year, Lara had contracted chicken pox, and one of its lasting effects (in adults, especially) is an enormous fatigue. She also was involved in many changes – she had to pack up and move from her house in Montreal and re-establish herself in Belgium, she had just separated professionally from her French producer, Jean-Claude Camus, she was fulfilling numerous far-flung engagements, finishing her English album [and fighting with Sony] – a case of burnout was certainly suspected.
**In addition, we know that benign tumors were found in her liver and kidneys, and her blood was affected, with much pain. Lara now downplays the importance of all this, saying it wasn’t grave, but the doctors at the time were not so convinced. According to the book, she was given strong chemicals and other conventional treatments.
**Lara also felt that this was a ‘mind-body’ problem, and engaged in a practice called ‘total biology’ which involved questioning herself about the course of the illness, about why certain organs were affected, of what her psychic malady might be. Lara has said subsequently she had to face her psychic pain squarely, and let go of her anger over the various ‘wrongs’ she felt had been done to her, before she could be cured. She had to replace the negativity with a more positive approach.
**Lara now does not want to talk about this malady– she believes if she does so, it will bring it back into her consciousness, give it more power, and make it more likely to return. She does say that she got a full appreciation for her vulnerability – that she was indeed ‘breakable’.
All this is past history now, and Lara’s health is no longer really a concern, but at the time no one knew what was going on, or how serious it was. We still really don’t. But modern medicine is clearly showing how being overly stressed impacts one’s health, and Lara had been undergoing that for a several years by the summer of 2004. [Agreeing, Lara further says that the greatest stress was actually moving away from Canada.] When we see her in all these new ventures, it’s good to keep in mind how courageous this really is, given how vulnerable she (and all of us) really are, and applaud her for taking chances.
David
