Post by davidhr on Jul 5, 2011 13:39:56 GMT -5
Two stories vied for attention this past week, with very different time-lines.
In a ‘one-time-only’ mode (three times, actually), Lara finished her performances in the play ‘1939’ in Paris this past week. Lara was on stage several times, sang several songs, including, effectively, a few encores of a new song ‘Sans pourquoi'. We are fortunate to have videos of Lara’s performance to open the show, and her song presentations (available on youtube). Reviews by fans who attended and several by the press were unanimous in praising Lara, as well as the other actors (80 in all plus 7 musicians), and the show in general.
Here’s an example of a (translated) review from Tf1 casting news:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1939: The Lara Fabian and AICOM Standing Ovations Last Night!
Last night the cast of the musical in 1939 accompanied by the great Lara Fabian set fire to the Theatre du Gymnase, the won-over public had a triumph reserved for them!
You had to be in the auditorium of the gym yesterday to see the audience stand up and cheer Lara and the cast of 1939 at the end of the show. The audience was quite simply won-over! It must be said that the troupe composed mainly of students from AICOM had set the bar high. The emotion was very present in this show written and composed by Stéphane Métro and Christophe Borie, and students of AICOM have shown a fool-proof professionalism, perfectly at ease with the choreography of Yoann Nus. And what to say about Lara Fabian .... Divine! Congratulations to Pierre-Yves Duchesne who once again showed that students at his school were real artists!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In particular, video with extracts from the show can be found at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpLpSl9eD7Y&feature=player_embedded#at=425
and an interview with Lara, complete with English subtitles is at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMPQ--TMIWA
(you may notice that this interview was for a ‘good news’ website, a sentiment with which Lara is in total agreement…).
Although she was reported to be ill (with what a fan said was 104F fever), Lara was in perfect voice and looked very happy about this whole adventure (in the above interview Lara’s message is, basically, the means determine the ends, and this show was the right path for her). It included all the aspects that she loves: giving her the chance to act in a play (however minimally) as well as sing, helping out the student actors from AICOM (including children), and aiding her singing teacher Pierre-Yves Duchesne, with all proceeds going to her preferred charity, AMTM. It was also a chance to interact with her French audience, which she has been missing given her focus this year on the countries in Asia. As the “Pure-Lara “ facebook site put it, this was Lara’s first step into the musical comedy world [actually, outside of a performance in West Side Story, 20 years ago]. We’ll see if it has whet her appetite for more (like the show ‘Victor Victoria’ which she had to cancel due to scheduling conflicts). Lara said in her interview that she’s waiting for the path to more musical comedy adventures to become clear to her.
The other major item, the true opening of Lara’s Facebook site, has long-term ramifications for her fans. It got off to a somewhat bumpy start. First, adding new messages to the ‘wall’ was limited to Lara’s people, provoking protests. Then it was opened up to everybody, and chaos ensued, with a flood of messages concerned with widely varying topics. Finally, the administrators relegated new topics to the ‘discussion’ section, in categories that are suggested by the messages themselves (it’s still not clear – to me at least- who makes that decision, or when). In the process the ton of messages that poured in initially to the wall were all erased, provoking more protests.
Obviously, the procedures will all be worked out one way or another, but some outstanding questions remain. In switching to Facebook, the forum on the official site was closed. The Facebook site messages in effect combine comments from the old forum with messages to Lara that used to be in the ‘book of gold’ section – these latter are generally of the nature of personal messages to Lara, of affection or praise. While that’s all well and good, serious commentary about the subjects at hand is diluted. Lara’s forum, while not perfect, often contained informed commentary on the relevant subjects, including suggestions of necessary improvements (i.e., criticisms). It’s not clear that this aspect can survive in what appears to be the more ‘stream-of-consciousness’ message style that Facebook features. If not, one would suspect a rejuvenation of some of the other private Lara forums. [As an example, information for this news update has relied more on other sites than it did when the official forum was still operative]. Some fans think (hope) that a new official site/forum will be opened, but that remains to be seen.
Nevertheless, there’s much to be positive about. Lara’s ‘people’ are making a great effort to update the news on the site, more so by far than on the official URL site (we’ll see how long this lasts), adding some photos, even acknowledging the importance of youtube videos with their special (highly intrusive!) ‘app’. Lara has even chipped in with a few comments (and we’ll see how long that lasts). Her most recent message was even given in both French and English, which are the ‘official’ languages of the site. This is probably a bow towards the audience in the ‘countries to the east’ for whom English is more widely understood. Some of the Russian fans have posted on the site (not without complaining that Russian should be an approved language – as have the Italian fans for their language) and many other countries have been represented as well, perhaps partly the result of opening it up to English officially. The interactivity so far is hopeful, breathing life into Lara’s fandom.
Here’s wishing that this new venture into the public space is wildly successful, giving Lara the widespread recognition she deserves, and fans the information they deserve!
In other news, while the ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ album remains unreleased in France, news of it is spreading. Several of the French on-line sites have provided links to Lara’s Moscow Concert TV show that was devoted to the album, available on youtube. These websites clearly think it is important enough to publicize to their audience, even if Lara is still doubtful about its acceptance in that country. According to Lara’s FB site, her September concert in Belgium will be a preview of the Russian tour – which we have heard will be acoustic, and presumably include a lot of material from the album. So it may mark the introduction of it to at least a limited portion of the French audience. As for the movie, a fall release (in Russia/Ukraine) is still anticipated in conjunction with Lara’s tour. In one of the ‘disappearing’ messages on the Facebook site, Maria stated that Lara was going to see the finished product for the first time on July 4th.
Lara’s Romanian fan club is making the effort to post some older videos and new interviews on youtube complete with English translations when applicable (they were responsible for the subtitled interview above). The effort has been very well received; what they have done so far is available at:
www.youtube.com/larafabianromanianfc
Among them, don’t miss Rick Allison’s comments about the ‘Piano nocturne’ at the end of ‘Nue’ – it is a more detailed discussion of how it came about than Lara’s version (from the biography about her, referred to in a previous ‘news update’).
Laetitita from larafabianweb.com noted that starting Wednesday July 6 (1900-2000 French time) one will be able to order the CD “Il etait une fois” by Thierry Gali. The first 50 orders will receive the album dedicated by both Thierry and Lara, as well as a video taken of them preparing for Lara’s recording of Snow White. See that website for more details.
Now for more from the ‘Biography of Lara’, pp. 155-162. This section continues the discussion of “Neuf”, in particular the video clips bonus made in conjunction with the album’s songs.
**In retrospect, this was a low-budget version of the ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ film, with videos related to each of the songs, only in this case the videos were to be truly indicative of the lyrics. The director was Marc Hollogne, whom Lara had first seen as a teenager in clubs in Brussels.
Commentary on some of the specific clips:
**“Si tu n’as pas d’amour” is a takeoff on the Charlie Chaplin film ‘The Gold Rush’.
**“Ave Maria” was actually shot in Africa. The title ‘Un Ave Maria’ is to emphasize that this is not the iconic Ave Maria that, according to Lara, religions have made into a cult, but a pagan version unique and available to each of us, that is mystical, truly spiritual, and free of any material connotation.
**”Speranza” borrowed its ‘eyes in the picture frames following the action’ from Harry Potter.
**In “L’homme qui n’avait pas de masion”, Lara is wearing the cap of a Parisian street urchin; the homelss person is played by the comedian Jango Edwards, known for his eccentric visuals.
**”Ne lui parle plus d’elle”, where Lara plays the part of an adulteress, was meant to be extremely sensual.
**Most of the discussion revolves around “Les Homericains”. Lara (with the help of Jean-Felix) had chosen Melissa Mars for the part having heard her work with Pascal Obispo, among others. Lara says she loves what Melissa does (but at the same time, we know they never did a live duet of the song). Melissa said she had no idea what to do with her part, but Lara told her to just “amuse yourself” – at which point Melissa improvised, with “personal phrases and small references”.
**As to the song itself, Lara said that Americans are easy targets, and Europeans should look more closely at themselves before acting so superior. Lara herself believes that America’s ‘problem’ is that the people are too cut off from the rest of the world – they don’t speak other languages, or in general don’t live abroad enough – so they end up being naïve about how the world really functions. They have “an exceptional strength, which (without this wisdom) can be used either for very good or very bad".
**Finally, the 2007 remake of “Il ne manquait que toi” has Lara being a spectator of the important moments of her life, with the camera spinning around 360° making it all seem like a dream, or making Lara “a phantom who stops time and comes to visit earth”. This was shot by Gerard, and in doing so it was presumably related (one way or another) to their ultimate relationship.
Lara’s concert in Astana, Khazistan is scheduled for this evening. Hopefully there will be some videos made available - Lara’s people don’t seem to be making concerted attempts to stop that from happening (note the very apparent recording going on in some of the videos for the 1939 show). We’ll also find out whether she will move away from lip-synching some of the songs, in preparation for her fall tour. (The first news reports are just now, at the time of this writing, appearing on youtube.)
David
In a ‘one-time-only’ mode (three times, actually), Lara finished her performances in the play ‘1939’ in Paris this past week. Lara was on stage several times, sang several songs, including, effectively, a few encores of a new song ‘Sans pourquoi'. We are fortunate to have videos of Lara’s performance to open the show, and her song presentations (available on youtube). Reviews by fans who attended and several by the press were unanimous in praising Lara, as well as the other actors (80 in all plus 7 musicians), and the show in general.
Here’s an example of a (translated) review from Tf1 casting news:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1939: The Lara Fabian and AICOM Standing Ovations Last Night!
Last night the cast of the musical in 1939 accompanied by the great Lara Fabian set fire to the Theatre du Gymnase, the won-over public had a triumph reserved for them!
You had to be in the auditorium of the gym yesterday to see the audience stand up and cheer Lara and the cast of 1939 at the end of the show. The audience was quite simply won-over! It must be said that the troupe composed mainly of students from AICOM had set the bar high. The emotion was very present in this show written and composed by Stéphane Métro and Christophe Borie, and students of AICOM have shown a fool-proof professionalism, perfectly at ease with the choreography of Yoann Nus. And what to say about Lara Fabian .... Divine! Congratulations to Pierre-Yves Duchesne who once again showed that students at his school were real artists!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In particular, video with extracts from the show can be found at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpLpSl9eD7Y&feature=player_embedded#at=425
and an interview with Lara, complete with English subtitles is at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMPQ--TMIWA
(you may notice that this interview was for a ‘good news’ website, a sentiment with which Lara is in total agreement…).
Although she was reported to be ill (with what a fan said was 104F fever), Lara was in perfect voice and looked very happy about this whole adventure (in the above interview Lara’s message is, basically, the means determine the ends, and this show was the right path for her). It included all the aspects that she loves: giving her the chance to act in a play (however minimally) as well as sing, helping out the student actors from AICOM (including children), and aiding her singing teacher Pierre-Yves Duchesne, with all proceeds going to her preferred charity, AMTM. It was also a chance to interact with her French audience, which she has been missing given her focus this year on the countries in Asia. As the “Pure-Lara “ facebook site put it, this was Lara’s first step into the musical comedy world [actually, outside of a performance in West Side Story, 20 years ago]. We’ll see if it has whet her appetite for more (like the show ‘Victor Victoria’ which she had to cancel due to scheduling conflicts). Lara said in her interview that she’s waiting for the path to more musical comedy adventures to become clear to her.
The other major item, the true opening of Lara’s Facebook site, has long-term ramifications for her fans. It got off to a somewhat bumpy start. First, adding new messages to the ‘wall’ was limited to Lara’s people, provoking protests. Then it was opened up to everybody, and chaos ensued, with a flood of messages concerned with widely varying topics. Finally, the administrators relegated new topics to the ‘discussion’ section, in categories that are suggested by the messages themselves (it’s still not clear – to me at least- who makes that decision, or when). In the process the ton of messages that poured in initially to the wall were all erased, provoking more protests.
Obviously, the procedures will all be worked out one way or another, but some outstanding questions remain. In switching to Facebook, the forum on the official site was closed. The Facebook site messages in effect combine comments from the old forum with messages to Lara that used to be in the ‘book of gold’ section – these latter are generally of the nature of personal messages to Lara, of affection or praise. While that’s all well and good, serious commentary about the subjects at hand is diluted. Lara’s forum, while not perfect, often contained informed commentary on the relevant subjects, including suggestions of necessary improvements (i.e., criticisms). It’s not clear that this aspect can survive in what appears to be the more ‘stream-of-consciousness’ message style that Facebook features. If not, one would suspect a rejuvenation of some of the other private Lara forums. [As an example, information for this news update has relied more on other sites than it did when the official forum was still operative]. Some fans think (hope) that a new official site/forum will be opened, but that remains to be seen.
Nevertheless, there’s much to be positive about. Lara’s ‘people’ are making a great effort to update the news on the site, more so by far than on the official URL site (we’ll see how long this lasts), adding some photos, even acknowledging the importance of youtube videos with their special (highly intrusive!) ‘app’. Lara has even chipped in with a few comments (and we’ll see how long that lasts). Her most recent message was even given in both French and English, which are the ‘official’ languages of the site. This is probably a bow towards the audience in the ‘countries to the east’ for whom English is more widely understood. Some of the Russian fans have posted on the site (not without complaining that Russian should be an approved language – as have the Italian fans for their language) and many other countries have been represented as well, perhaps partly the result of opening it up to English officially. The interactivity so far is hopeful, breathing life into Lara’s fandom.
Here’s wishing that this new venture into the public space is wildly successful, giving Lara the widespread recognition she deserves, and fans the information they deserve!
In other news, while the ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ album remains unreleased in France, news of it is spreading. Several of the French on-line sites have provided links to Lara’s Moscow Concert TV show that was devoted to the album, available on youtube. These websites clearly think it is important enough to publicize to their audience, even if Lara is still doubtful about its acceptance in that country. According to Lara’s FB site, her September concert in Belgium will be a preview of the Russian tour – which we have heard will be acoustic, and presumably include a lot of material from the album. So it may mark the introduction of it to at least a limited portion of the French audience. As for the movie, a fall release (in Russia/Ukraine) is still anticipated in conjunction with Lara’s tour. In one of the ‘disappearing’ messages on the Facebook site, Maria stated that Lara was going to see the finished product for the first time on July 4th.
Lara’s Romanian fan club is making the effort to post some older videos and new interviews on youtube complete with English translations when applicable (they were responsible for the subtitled interview above). The effort has been very well received; what they have done so far is available at:
www.youtube.com/larafabianromanianfc
Among them, don’t miss Rick Allison’s comments about the ‘Piano nocturne’ at the end of ‘Nue’ – it is a more detailed discussion of how it came about than Lara’s version (from the biography about her, referred to in a previous ‘news update’).
Laetitita from larafabianweb.com noted that starting Wednesday July 6 (1900-2000 French time) one will be able to order the CD “Il etait une fois” by Thierry Gali. The first 50 orders will receive the album dedicated by both Thierry and Lara, as well as a video taken of them preparing for Lara’s recording of Snow White. See that website for more details.
Now for more from the ‘Biography of Lara’, pp. 155-162. This section continues the discussion of “Neuf”, in particular the video clips bonus made in conjunction with the album’s songs.
**In retrospect, this was a low-budget version of the ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ film, with videos related to each of the songs, only in this case the videos were to be truly indicative of the lyrics. The director was Marc Hollogne, whom Lara had first seen as a teenager in clubs in Brussels.
Commentary on some of the specific clips:
**“Si tu n’as pas d’amour” is a takeoff on the Charlie Chaplin film ‘The Gold Rush’.
**“Ave Maria” was actually shot in Africa. The title ‘Un Ave Maria’ is to emphasize that this is not the iconic Ave Maria that, according to Lara, religions have made into a cult, but a pagan version unique and available to each of us, that is mystical, truly spiritual, and free of any material connotation.
**”Speranza” borrowed its ‘eyes in the picture frames following the action’ from Harry Potter.
**In “L’homme qui n’avait pas de masion”, Lara is wearing the cap of a Parisian street urchin; the homelss person is played by the comedian Jango Edwards, known for his eccentric visuals.
**”Ne lui parle plus d’elle”, where Lara plays the part of an adulteress, was meant to be extremely sensual.
**Most of the discussion revolves around “Les Homericains”. Lara (with the help of Jean-Felix) had chosen Melissa Mars for the part having heard her work with Pascal Obispo, among others. Lara says she loves what Melissa does (but at the same time, we know they never did a live duet of the song). Melissa said she had no idea what to do with her part, but Lara told her to just “amuse yourself” – at which point Melissa improvised, with “personal phrases and small references”.
**As to the song itself, Lara said that Americans are easy targets, and Europeans should look more closely at themselves before acting so superior. Lara herself believes that America’s ‘problem’ is that the people are too cut off from the rest of the world – they don’t speak other languages, or in general don’t live abroad enough – so they end up being naïve about how the world really functions. They have “an exceptional strength, which (without this wisdom) can be used either for very good or very bad".
**Finally, the 2007 remake of “Il ne manquait que toi” has Lara being a spectator of the important moments of her life, with the camera spinning around 360° making it all seem like a dream, or making Lara “a phantom who stops time and comes to visit earth”. This was shot by Gerard, and in doing so it was presumably related (one way or another) to their ultimate relationship.
Lara’s concert in Astana, Khazistan is scheduled for this evening. Hopefully there will be some videos made available - Lara’s people don’t seem to be making concerted attempts to stop that from happening (note the very apparent recording going on in some of the videos for the 1939 show). We’ll also find out whether she will move away from lip-synching some of the songs, in preparation for her fall tour. (The first news reports are just now, at the time of this writing, appearing on youtube.)
David