Post by davidhr on Apr 24, 2012 12:44:43 GMT -5
Lara left a new message on her FB site yesterday. I’ve copied it here as it was put on in English as well (although the translation from the French doesn’t appear to me to be very accurate):
---------------------------------------------------------------
My angels,
A thought of love in this day… Bright and shiny!!!
By the way… tomorrow Georges Perris’s new album is getting out. I love him! I’ve made an incursion in it as an author and as a singer too… you’ll tell me what you think about it…
I’ve loved singing with this boy… He’s beautiful in every meaning of the word…
Otherwise… on the 21th of June DVD-CD BOOK of Mlle Jhivago will be release in EXCLUSIVITY !!!!
So… it’s a slightly different version than what you’ve expected and it’s also a come back to the origin of the things…
A show in a mythic Hall… The KREMLIN. Songs I created for a specific country and a unique audience that I’ve wanted to share with you for a long time…, including ALWAYS which you asked me a lot !
Besides this, 1 bonus totally unpublished called “JE T’AIME ENCORE”… and especially pictures, pictures, a lot of pictures… The film… well… we didn’t find a way to understand each other the director and me… it’s life… I’ve made my grief of the situation… and I’ve learned that despite everything people can say, in life, experience is a lantern that enlightened only the one who’s wearing it…
Whatever it was really rewarding… And the DVD-CD BOOK I propose you is really beautiful… I really had a lot of pleasure to work on this with the team of ipanema editions and it will be release exclusively in France on the 21th of June at Carrefour… about other countries we will keep you informed as soon as possible !!!
I wanted you to know…
Kiss…
Lov. L ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Ocelot first reported in the thread of the last update, a lot of significance contained in this message, and my personal response is to feel sorry for Lara. Clearly she wanted to make a big splash with the MZ project, and the inability to get the film component the way she wanted has effectively cut it in half. Furthermore, the fact that the DVD-CD Book is being sold in Carrefour stores in France shows she could not get Universal on board for the effort. For all her great talent, it is sad how Lara’s career continually founders on these exigencies…
The CD may well sound quite different from the version released in France (and I think it’s a good bet that Igor Krutoi will not be on the cover
). If one had to guess, the Russian song will probably not be included, the orchestration may be very different (more in line with what one might think appropriate for the French market – remember the first version of ‘Demain n’existe pas’), and it appears that “Always” will be added (that also implies that Igor Krutoi is going along with this release). Plus there’s a completely new song as well. This may be enough to get Lara’s fans on board, even those who have already spent for the Russian/Ukrainian release.
Interestingly, Lara’s FB site this past week had carried the link to an article about her upcoming release with George Perris in which it mentioned the MZ CD, and said it contained the music and singing associated with Lara’s greatest hits. At the time it seemed odd that she would be pointing her audience to such a comment, but it makes more sense now. The CD was always a separate issue from the film, and Lara continually said how much she liked it, so why its release was so restricted had remained unfathomable, especially with Krutoi talking so openly early on about all the countries it would be in (including North America), how it was “the best music he had ever written”. Now it’s clear they were waiting for agreement on the movie, as had been suspected. And now, as she said, she’s given up.
The DVD mentioned in the release would seem to be the TV show from Moscow of December 2010, that many consider one of her most beautiful “performances”. The word is in quotations of course because many of the MZ songs were lip-synched; while that has happened occasionally on her other DVDs, not to the extent done here, for whatever reason. It is widely available on youtube.
As for the pictures to be part of the release, wouldn’t it be ironic if it included some of those wonderful scenes from the MZ film, but that’s doubtful. Otherwise, they are probably retrospectives from her career.
On one of the websites it was noted that Carrefour has released 5 ‘books’ of this sort previously, for Christophe Mae, Celine Dion, Johnny Hallyday, Claude Francois and Eddy Mitchell. So Lara’s in good company part of their series of ‘Stars on Display’ (one can see the link here, thanks to Elisa Vidal on the MZ FB site).
agence-ipanema.fr/collection-stars-a-laffiche/
And they were apparently very good publications, of some 140 pages with hundreds of unpublished photographs (the CD and the DVD are simply ‘bonuses’). In that sense it is not a real CD or DVD ‘release’, but it could have the same effect if it is widely reviewed. However, without the help of a big record company that is not guaranteed. Let’s hope that Lara publicizes it in France on TV and gives interviews in music publications, for both the music and the singing on it are as good as it gets for her.
She also mentions that it will be made available in other countries – presumably in the same form, but clearly the CD could stand alone (as was Krutoi’s first inclination). If so, it could then take the form of a more general CD release for the international market. Otherwise, how available it will be to people outside of France is not clear (this is not amazon.com or FNAC, on-line sites eminently available to an international audience). Given that the majority of the album is in English, one has to imagine that every effort will be made to optimize its appearance internationally (but crazier things have happened when Lara is involved).
We know Lara’s final position, we don’t know everyone else’s. However, Alan Badoev did respond on his Twitter account, with numerous messages. The gist of them is that he was shocked at learning of her statement, that a lot of work went into this effort, but that work does not always win out. He cannot show the film without a license from Lara, that only her fans can convince her of the need for it [and from their messages on her site, they back her decision]. He thinks that a ‘book’ is not a substitute for a living film which would have been a breath of fresh air, and that her refusal to allow it to be seen is an act of cowardice on her part. We haven’t heard from Igor Krutoi, or of course from Universal France who spent $3 million on it; maybe we never will…
In a possibly related development, there have now been four different reports concerning a Russian tour for Lara in the fall. Cities so far mentioned are Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen and Kazan (this for October 9th). These are all in a general region north of Kazakhstan, and if it were to take place, one would imagine the tour would likely include Moscow and the big cities in Russia/Ukraine further west. But now that Lara has tossed in the towel on the film, is that really an option, given Badoev’s popular (and very vocal) presence there? [Controversy has never been known to hurt ticket sales, but Lara would have to be very sure of her self to confront it…].
In other news, as Lara also noted in her statement, today is the release in Quebec of George Perris’s new album including the duet with Lara of “Ma solitude”, and the track that Lara has written for him "Dis-moi comment t'aimer". An extract of Lara’s duet is available on youtube, and it can also be found at: webfile.ru/5917504 . For those not in Canada, or ordering from there, Amazon.com has the album available with a release date of May 1st, at:
www.amazon.com/Un-Souhait-George-Perris/dp/B007NFYMTK/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1335215579&sr=1-2-spell
What Lara didn’t mention for some reason is that yesterday was the release date for the albums in honor of Dalida, that will mark the 25th anniversary of her death. The double album is entitled "Depuis qu'elle est partie", and as noted previously, it includes a ‘Best Of’ album of the singer, 'Dalida Chante', and another disc with recordings of her songs by famous artists, 'Ils chantent Dalida'. Lara is included with the song "Il venait d'avoir 18 ans". For those interested, it’s (theoretically) available from amazon.com, at
www.amazon.com/Dalida-Depuis-QuElle-Est-Partie/dp/B007KA7UFG
(‘temporarily out of stock’).
And finally, while there have not been a plethora of videos from Lara’s show in Kazakhstan last week, the Romanian fan club has posted a few more – available in their ‘videos’ section.
The good news from all of this is that there will finally be some further release and hopefully, promotion, of the Mlle. Zhivago CD, not only in France but presumably in other countries as well. So it won’t be doomed to live its life in Russia and the Ukraine. If reviewed, it’s likely to bring Lara back into the mind of the French public, and even the DVD of the Russian concert is bound to get favorable mention (as long as people don’t look too closely!). A release at the beginning of summer is far from ideal, and let’s hope this does not get lost, but at least it’s ‘on the record’ in France (literally) . [Of course, the same could be said about EWIM, which was not a real record company release, it never got reviewed and few people outside of her fans know about it. But it also never had distribution in other countries.]
The bad news, obviously, is that at least from Lara’s perspective, we will never get to see her as an actress in what looked like the role(s) of a lifetime, a role she said she “was born to play”. We know the essence of the disagreement – Lara wanted the movie to have a positive spin, showing how love can overcome obstacles. Badoev wanted to show that life is cruel and one should not avoid that, but love is available to temper it. Inconceivable to those not familiar with the details how no compromise could be reached. One can’t say that Lara was wrong – but then again, for some reason compromises are never reached, and her career ends up littered with missed opportunities. If she is really without a record company, and reduced to a ‘bouquet’ artist, then sticking strongly to her values will have come at the price of her ability to be creative and be heard. A bargain she may well have to live with.
David
---------------------------------------------------------------
My angels,
A thought of love in this day… Bright and shiny!!!
By the way… tomorrow Georges Perris’s new album is getting out. I love him! I’ve made an incursion in it as an author and as a singer too… you’ll tell me what you think about it…
I’ve loved singing with this boy… He’s beautiful in every meaning of the word…
Otherwise… on the 21th of June DVD-CD BOOK of Mlle Jhivago will be release in EXCLUSIVITY !!!!
So… it’s a slightly different version than what you’ve expected and it’s also a come back to the origin of the things…
A show in a mythic Hall… The KREMLIN. Songs I created for a specific country and a unique audience that I’ve wanted to share with you for a long time…, including ALWAYS which you asked me a lot !
Besides this, 1 bonus totally unpublished called “JE T’AIME ENCORE”… and especially pictures, pictures, a lot of pictures… The film… well… we didn’t find a way to understand each other the director and me… it’s life… I’ve made my grief of the situation… and I’ve learned that despite everything people can say, in life, experience is a lantern that enlightened only the one who’s wearing it…
Whatever it was really rewarding… And the DVD-CD BOOK I propose you is really beautiful… I really had a lot of pleasure to work on this with the team of ipanema editions and it will be release exclusively in France on the 21th of June at Carrefour… about other countries we will keep you informed as soon as possible !!!
I wanted you to know…
Kiss…
Lov. L ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Ocelot first reported in the thread of the last update, a lot of significance contained in this message, and my personal response is to feel sorry for Lara. Clearly she wanted to make a big splash with the MZ project, and the inability to get the film component the way she wanted has effectively cut it in half. Furthermore, the fact that the DVD-CD Book is being sold in Carrefour stores in France shows she could not get Universal on board for the effort. For all her great talent, it is sad how Lara’s career continually founders on these exigencies…
The CD may well sound quite different from the version released in France (and I think it’s a good bet that Igor Krutoi will not be on the cover
). If one had to guess, the Russian song will probably not be included, the orchestration may be very different (more in line with what one might think appropriate for the French market – remember the first version of ‘Demain n’existe pas’), and it appears that “Always” will be added (that also implies that Igor Krutoi is going along with this release). Plus there’s a completely new song as well. This may be enough to get Lara’s fans on board, even those who have already spent for the Russian/Ukrainian release.Interestingly, Lara’s FB site this past week had carried the link to an article about her upcoming release with George Perris in which it mentioned the MZ CD, and said it contained the music and singing associated with Lara’s greatest hits. At the time it seemed odd that she would be pointing her audience to such a comment, but it makes more sense now. The CD was always a separate issue from the film, and Lara continually said how much she liked it, so why its release was so restricted had remained unfathomable, especially with Krutoi talking so openly early on about all the countries it would be in (including North America), how it was “the best music he had ever written”. Now it’s clear they were waiting for agreement on the movie, as had been suspected. And now, as she said, she’s given up.
The DVD mentioned in the release would seem to be the TV show from Moscow of December 2010, that many consider one of her most beautiful “performances”. The word is in quotations of course because many of the MZ songs were lip-synched; while that has happened occasionally on her other DVDs, not to the extent done here, for whatever reason. It is widely available on youtube.
As for the pictures to be part of the release, wouldn’t it be ironic if it included some of those wonderful scenes from the MZ film
, but that’s doubtful. Otherwise, they are probably retrospectives from her career. On one of the websites it was noted that Carrefour has released 5 ‘books’ of this sort previously, for Christophe Mae, Celine Dion, Johnny Hallyday, Claude Francois and Eddy Mitchell. So Lara’s in good company part of their series of ‘Stars on Display’ (one can see the link here, thanks to Elisa Vidal on the MZ FB site).
agence-ipanema.fr/collection-stars-a-laffiche/
And they were apparently very good publications, of some 140 pages with hundreds of unpublished photographs (the CD and the DVD are simply ‘bonuses’). In that sense it is not a real CD or DVD ‘release’, but it could have the same effect if it is widely reviewed. However, without the help of a big record company that is not guaranteed. Let’s hope that Lara publicizes it in France on TV and gives interviews in music publications, for both the music and the singing on it are as good as it gets for her.
She also mentions that it will be made available in other countries – presumably in the same form, but clearly the CD could stand alone (as was Krutoi’s first inclination). If so, it could then take the form of a more general CD release for the international market. Otherwise, how available it will be to people outside of France is not clear (this is not amazon.com or FNAC, on-line sites eminently available to an international audience). Given that the majority of the album is in English, one has to imagine that every effort will be made to optimize its appearance internationally (but crazier things have happened when Lara is involved).
We know Lara’s final position, we don’t know everyone else’s. However, Alan Badoev did respond on his Twitter account, with numerous messages. The gist of them is that he was shocked at learning of her statement, that a lot of work went into this effort, but that work does not always win out. He cannot show the film without a license from Lara, that only her fans can convince her of the need for it [and from their messages on her site, they back her decision]. He thinks that a ‘book’ is not a substitute for a living film which would have been a breath of fresh air, and that her refusal to allow it to be seen is an act of cowardice on her part. We haven’t heard from Igor Krutoi, or of course from Universal France who spent $3 million on it; maybe we never will…
In a possibly related development, there have now been four different reports concerning a Russian tour for Lara in the fall. Cities so far mentioned are Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen and Kazan (this for October 9th). These are all in a general region north of Kazakhstan, and if it were to take place, one would imagine the tour would likely include Moscow and the big cities in Russia/Ukraine further west. But now that Lara has tossed in the towel on the film, is that really an option, given Badoev’s popular (and very vocal) presence there? [Controversy has never been known to hurt ticket sales, but Lara would have to be very sure of her self to confront it…].
In other news, as Lara also noted in her statement, today is the release in Quebec of George Perris’s new album including the duet with Lara of “Ma solitude”, and the track that Lara has written for him "Dis-moi comment t'aimer". An extract of Lara’s duet is available on youtube, and it can also be found at: webfile.ru/5917504 . For those not in Canada, or ordering from there, Amazon.com has the album available with a release date of May 1st, at:
www.amazon.com/Un-Souhait-George-Perris/dp/B007NFYMTK/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1335215579&sr=1-2-spell
What Lara didn’t mention for some reason is that yesterday was the release date for the albums in honor of Dalida, that will mark the 25th anniversary of her death. The double album is entitled "Depuis qu'elle est partie", and as noted previously, it includes a ‘Best Of’ album of the singer, 'Dalida Chante', and another disc with recordings of her songs by famous artists, 'Ils chantent Dalida'. Lara is included with the song "Il venait d'avoir 18 ans". For those interested, it’s (theoretically) available from amazon.com, at
www.amazon.com/Dalida-Depuis-QuElle-Est-Partie/dp/B007KA7UFG
(‘temporarily out of stock’).
And finally, while there have not been a plethora of videos from Lara’s show in Kazakhstan last week, the Romanian fan club has posted a few more – available in their ‘videos’ section.
The good news from all of this is that there will finally be some further release and hopefully, promotion, of the Mlle. Zhivago CD, not only in France but presumably in other countries as well. So it won’t be doomed to live its life in Russia and the Ukraine. If reviewed, it’s likely to bring Lara back into the mind of the French public, and even the DVD of the Russian concert is bound to get favorable mention (as long as people don’t look too closely!). A release at the beginning of summer is far from ideal, and let’s hope this does not get lost, but at least it’s ‘on the record’ in France (literally)
. [Of course, the same could be said about EWIM, which was not a real record company release, it never got reviewed and few people outside of her fans know about it. But it also never had distribution in other countries.]The bad news, obviously, is that at least from Lara’s perspective, we will never get to see her as an actress in what looked like the role(s) of a lifetime, a role she said she “was born to play”. We know the essence of the disagreement – Lara wanted the movie to have a positive spin, showing how love can overcome obstacles. Badoev wanted to show that life is cruel and one should not avoid that, but love is available to temper it. Inconceivable to those not familiar with the details how no compromise could be reached. One can’t say that Lara was wrong – but then again, for some reason compromises are never reached, and her career ends up littered with missed opportunities. If she is really without a record company, and reduced to a ‘bouquet’ artist, then sticking strongly to her values will have come at the price of her ability to be creative and be heard. A bargain she may well have to live with.
David
