Post by davidhr on Apr 17, 2012 10:37:03 GMT -5
As scheduled, Lara performed at the IV Charity Ball this past Saturday night in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The charity this year was to help women who are unable to have children and to allocate quotas to hold a one-time-vitro fertilization (IVF). In early April, six families received certificates for IVF.
Although news reports indicated Lara sang songs from the Mlle. Zhivago album, apparently the 7 specific songs reported were all from her older albums: J’y crois encore, Je t’aime, La difference, Je suis malade, Soleil soleil, Do you Know Where You’re Going to and Adagio. So far only the video from ‘Je t’aime’ has made it onto the web (called ‘Lara_Fabian_in_Almaty_Chokito_BNews.kz’), and apparently after the first few songs Lara demanded that no videos be allowed. [Maybe it was annoying her, but from the setlist as we know it, there wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen before]. Various pictures from the event are available, however, e.g.,
larafabianbrasil.blogspot.com/
www.photos-pure-lara.fr/thumbnails.php?album=67
The promoters, and press, were very happy with Lara’s participation, she was literally the ‘belle of the ball’. The organizers also said she hadn’t been difficult to please, except for one special ‘technical rider’ in her contract: she asked for a certain brand of piano, which they had to get from the Kazakh conservatory; it had been a “gift from the President of Kazakhstan Aubakirova Nursulatan Nazarbayev in honor of its 50th anniversary”. [He can certainly afford it; according to Wikipedia, “he is believed to have transferred at least $1 billion worth of oil revenues to his private bank accounts in other countries and his family controls many other key enterprises in Kazakhstan”].
The event was not however a complete ‘walk in the park’ for her. Apparently when appearing on the ‘red carpet’, it was so windy that she could not even get to the tent – she had to be picked up by car to get there, and similarly transported when leaving.
Lara was reportedly paid handsomely to attend (uncertain numbers say more than 100,000 euros). In a perhaps related news item, Lara’s gold disc for her ‘best of’ release in Belgium is being auctioned on ‘Télévie’. Putting the items together (speculatively), one may draw the conclusion that Lara is trying to obtain enough funding to release her next album, if she has in fact already parted ways with Universal.
The piano in question was presumably for Giora Linenberg, who celebrated his 41st birthday on Saturday. A picture of him with Lara can be found at:
www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3486022905785&set=a.1460889558717.2064005.1127782811&type=1&theater
In other news, it was reported that Lara has opened up an official Twitter site, to be found at:
twitter.com/#!/LFabianOfficial
The site certainly exists, but so far there have been no ‘tweets’. Some fans are skeptical that it is real, although one doubts that Twitter would allow that name to be used fictitiously.
Instead, on her official FB site, Lara’s people asked for comments from fans. They obliged with testimonials of affection, which were so pleasing to her that she responded thanking them for all the love. One imagines that this helps boost Lara’s morale, but one would be hard pressed to find a message with anything significant to say. That may be because the fans don’t have anything to say (a la the ‘book of gold’ on the URL site), or because Lara’s censors remove less-than-adoring messages, as claimed by some websites. Regardless, Lara is not getting feedback that could help provide perspective on what others think about her career. In fact, even on the closely associated sites, fans wonder why she is spending her time in countries like Kazakhstan, when her career seems to be stalled (they rationalize it by saying she’s getting the funding for the next album).
While attention is been focused on this geographical area, “Esmeralda” on the Russian site reported that 5th graders in the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia are actually studying Lara’s biography in their music class, and taking tests on it. She also notes that “in music schools, the class of pop vocal has children listening to her songs, and attempting to mimic them”. Wonder if they include the Mlle. Zhivago film in their studies?
After a more than a month hiatus, the Lara Fabian Romanian fanclub has produced the fourth subtitled part of the wonderful Belgian show ‘Lara Fabian - Quelque chose en nous de’. There are still six more installments to go.
Lara’s next scheduled concert is in Cesaree, Israel, in June. Tickets are available at:
www.kassabravo.org/announce/buy/26559
She mentioned while in Eastern Europe that she will be appearing in Italy in May, but so far we haven’t heard anything more concerning this. So as things stand now, there is nothing on her calendar publicly for the next several months.
David
Although news reports indicated Lara sang songs from the Mlle. Zhivago album, apparently the 7 specific songs reported were all from her older albums: J’y crois encore, Je t’aime, La difference, Je suis malade, Soleil soleil, Do you Know Where You’re Going to and Adagio. So far only the video from ‘Je t’aime’ has made it onto the web (called ‘Lara_Fabian_in_Almaty_Chokito_BNews.kz’), and apparently after the first few songs Lara demanded that no videos be allowed. [Maybe it was annoying her, but from the setlist as we know it, there wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen before]. Various pictures from the event are available, however, e.g.,
larafabianbrasil.blogspot.com/
www.photos-pure-lara.fr/thumbnails.php?album=67
The promoters, and press, were very happy with Lara’s participation, she was literally the ‘belle of the ball’. The organizers also said she hadn’t been difficult to please, except for one special ‘technical rider’ in her contract: she asked for a certain brand of piano, which they had to get from the Kazakh conservatory; it had been a “gift from the President of Kazakhstan Aubakirova Nursulatan Nazarbayev in honor of its 50th anniversary”. [He can certainly afford it; according to Wikipedia, “he is believed to have transferred at least $1 billion worth of oil revenues to his private bank accounts in other countries and his family controls many other key enterprises in Kazakhstan”].
The event was not however a complete ‘walk in the park’ for her. Apparently when appearing on the ‘red carpet’, it was so windy that she could not even get to the tent – she had to be picked up by car to get there, and similarly transported when leaving.
Lara was reportedly paid handsomely to attend (uncertain numbers say more than 100,000 euros). In a perhaps related news item, Lara’s gold disc for her ‘best of’ release in Belgium is being auctioned on ‘Télévie’. Putting the items together (speculatively), one may draw the conclusion that Lara is trying to obtain enough funding to release her next album, if she has in fact already parted ways with Universal.
The piano in question was presumably for Giora Linenberg, who celebrated his 41st birthday on Saturday. A picture of him with Lara can be found at:
www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3486022905785&set=a.1460889558717.2064005.1127782811&type=1&theater
In other news, it was reported that Lara has opened up an official Twitter site, to be found at:
twitter.com/#!/LFabianOfficial
The site certainly exists, but so far there have been no ‘tweets’. Some fans are skeptical that it is real, although one doubts that Twitter would allow that name to be used fictitiously.
Instead, on her official FB site, Lara’s people asked for comments from fans. They obliged with testimonials of affection, which were so pleasing to her that she responded thanking them for all the love. One imagines that this helps boost Lara’s morale, but one would be hard pressed to find a message with anything significant to say. That may be because the fans don’t have anything to say (a la the ‘book of gold’ on the URL site), or because Lara’s censors remove less-than-adoring messages, as claimed by some websites. Regardless, Lara is not getting feedback that could help provide perspective on what others think about her career. In fact, even on the closely associated sites, fans wonder why she is spending her time in countries like Kazakhstan, when her career seems to be stalled (they rationalize it by saying she’s getting the funding for the next album).
While attention is been focused on this geographical area, “Esmeralda” on the Russian site reported that 5th graders in the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia are actually studying Lara’s biography in their music class, and taking tests on it. She also notes that “in music schools, the class of pop vocal has children listening to her songs, and attempting to mimic them”. Wonder if they include the Mlle. Zhivago film in their studies?
After a more than a month hiatus, the Lara Fabian Romanian fanclub has produced the fourth subtitled part of the wonderful Belgian show ‘Lara Fabian - Quelque chose en nous de’. There are still six more installments to go.
Lara’s next scheduled concert is in Cesaree, Israel, in June. Tickets are available at:
www.kassabravo.org/announce/buy/26559
She mentioned while in Eastern Europe that she will be appearing in Italy in May, but so far we haven’t heard anything more concerning this. So as things stand now, there is nothing on her calendar publicly for the next several months.
David