Post by davidhr on Dec 12, 2017 9:11:45 GMT -5
Another week, more TV appearances in Quebec, and another death of a close professional associate. Eerily mirroring the previous week, Lara had both the highs and lows of life in physical reality. We’ll start with the positive.
Lara was on the show ‘Ensemble, pour Noel’, and her extended appearance, including her performance of “We Are the Flyers” and an ensemble version of “Glory Alleluiah” can be seen at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiQXA_0O8Uc
or equivalently,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGXAhwC0_8I
[if they’re still there...a previous attempt to show it was removed; if not, one can also see it on the Lara Fabian Greece FB site, at
www.facebook.com/larafabiangreece/videos/828377267287368/]
Lara clearly stands out on Gory Alleluiah, both in her vocals and the color of her attire!
One is again struck by the supreme irony that Lara finally returns to Quebec in a serious way for the first time in more than 15 years, and it is with her first full-scale English album in more than a decade - normally an anathema for a Francophone artist in that province. Could there have been worse timing?...C’est la vie...Although her continual exposure is having some effect: the album has appeared on the Canadian iTunes charts, at #58. (It’s #64 on the Belgian charts, up from #77 last week).
Yesterday morning, Lara was on the show ‘Salut Bonjour’ on TVA; her performance of ‘Growing Wings’ can be seen at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvfOQ33eoX4
and her singing of ‘Petit Papa Noel’ can be seen at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-FfBxUoxHE
In addition, an interview on the show in which she discussed Johnny Halliday’s influence on her ‘destiny’, the ‘gifts’ she has received of her return to Quebec and her time on La Voix, and her new album is available in a video at, among other youtube threads,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnIhE6u6j4M
Lara has some more shows coming up...e.g., she will appear on “Deux filles le matin" next Wednesday on a special "Noël Gospel” a small portion of which can be seen on the promo,
www.facebook.com/2filleslematin/videos/10155580963370971/
According to the (translated) discussion of the show, (http://tva.canoe.ca/emissions/2filleslematin/cette-semaine2-filles):
-----------------------------------------------
“Christmas festivities continue for ‘2filles le matin’ while gospel invades our studios. Synonymous with joy, gathering and gratitude, this music will ignite our hearts and put us in the mood of the holidays! Marie-Claude and her guest of the week, France Castel, are surrounded by Lara Fabian, Lulu Hughes and Gregory Charles to share vibrant Christmas memories. A true gospel specialist, Greg teaches us more about the origins, evolution, and the influence of this kind of music, but most importantly, we understand that gospel, it sings, it dances... and it lives!”
-----------------------------------------------
As to what Lara’s plans are for the holiday, that is partially explained in an article appearing at
www.journaldemontreal.com/2017/12/08/la-famille-avant-tout, translated below:
———————————————————
The Family Before All
Back in Quebec to participate in the next season of La Voix , Lara Fabian will still have to go back and forth to Belgium during the holidays. The singer plans to go find her mother Luisa with DCL, a degenerative disease close to Alzheimer's.
“I have my dad and mom there. Mom has a fragile health and I'm going to take care of her for a few days, and then I'll come back here”, she says, met at the recording of the special show ‘Ensemble, pour Noël’ at the Corona Theater.
However, her return to the Belle Province with her husband Gabriel Di Giorgio and her 10-year-old daughter Lou represents a happy change for the star's family.
"To come back here is one of the most beautiful things that happened to me this year. I live it with so much gratitude. My daughter really loves Quebec. It's really a wonderful gift”, she says.
————————————————————
Going back home to Belgium under these circumstances must be a somewhat mixed blessing...Since she says she will be doing that for just a few days, it’s possible that her husband and daughter have remained in Quebec and she’ll rejoin them before Christmas.
And then there was, as I’m sure you know by now, the passing of Johnny Hallyday. Once again Lara had to post a sad video, this one at:
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/videos/1831434926897996/
Here’s (translated) what Lara said: “There are some people who pass in our lives and transform our destinies. Johnny, we'll miss you so much. This is what you are a creator of destinies, joys, happiness, infinite love. I cannot imagine that today you are already high among the stars and at the same time, that's where you come from, for me, and this is where you belong. Thank you, thank you for doing what you did in this life. All I want is that we can find you in the next one. See you soon somewhere.”
‘Paris Match’ had an article discussing Lara’s comments (http://www.parismatch.com/People/L-hommage-bouleversant-de-Lara-Fabian-a-Johnny-Hallyday-1411304); here’s the translation:
----------------------------------------------------
The Heartbreaking Tribute of Lara Fabian to Johnny Hallyday
Alexia Malige
Paris Match
Deeply touched by the disappearance of Johnny Hallyday, Lara Fabian addressed a last goodbye to the singer in a moving video.
He sang "I love you", she sang "I love you". Johnny Hallyday and Lara Fabian celebrated the love and passion on stage. A common taste for romance and the beautiful words they had lived side by side during exceptional events. Both had gathered at a legendary concert at the Stade de France in September 1998, where their duo had become legendary. On the title "Requiem for a fool", they had given voice, all their voice. A real exchange of titans that had marked the history of French song by its strength and intensity.
A Goodbye Full of Tenderness
Upon hearing of Johnny Hallyday's death on Wednesday, Lara Fabian decided to record a poignant message, which she posted on Facebook. "There are people passing through our lives and transforming our destinies," she says with emotion. "I can not imagine that today you are already up there among the stars and at the same time, that's where you come from, for me, and that's where you belong.” The singer of "Immortelle" has a trembling voice, tears in her eyes. Losing Johnny is like losing your mentor to her. A model of power, accuracy and sincerity that will be missed.
But in this moment of sadness and pain, Lara Fabian manages to find the words. Simple, beautiful and poetic. "Thank you," she told him. "Thank you for doing what you did in this life. All I want is that we can find you in the next one. See you soon somewhere."
---------------------------------------
As the article said, beautiful words from Lara…unfortunately, once again. It seems like several of these masters of song decided the end of the year was the appropriate time to ‘check out’.
Most of the following is obviously off-topic, but some of it is not. The NY Times had a full page obituary for Johnny Hallyday (as they had done for Dmitri Hvorostovsky the week before). Here are the salient points:
**He died of lung cancer, at the age of 74.
**He sold more than 100 million records, acted in more than 30 films, and appeared on the cover of Paris March dozens of times.
**His hard drinking, car crashes, wild partying and tempestuous love life made him a permanent headline in the French popular press.
**Of particular interest was his roller-coaster relationship and his on-again, off-again marriage to the singer and actress Sylvie Vartan; this led him to attempt suicide twice.
**He was born Jean-Philippe Smet in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1943, to a mother who was a model and father, a Belgian circus performer (and a Nazi collaborator). They divorced soon after his birth.
**He was actually raised by a paternal aunt Helene, a former silent-film actress. They had two singing daughters, and the family traveled all over Europe; his American father called him ‘Johnny’, while the family stage name was the Hallidays. He was the on-stage ‘mascot’, singing while the girls changed clothes.
**What changed his life was seeing Elvis Presley – he said the first time he saw him, “his voice, the way he moved, everything was sexy”, and that “I was paralyzed” by it.
**So he then started singing American rock songs in and around Paris, and was signed by Vogue Records – who misspelled the name Halliday on the cover of his first album. The misspelling (Hallyday) then stuck!
**Like Presley, he pursued a second career as an actor, but in his case, he eventually won serious critical respect.
**He made a point to keep up with changes in music. Over time he switched from hard-rock to breathy ballads, in the tradition of Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf. He also worked with top talent outside France. Therefore, after the early 1980s, he never really had a lull in his career.
**While to Elvis Presley’s compatriots, he was derided as an ‘imposter’, Arnold Turboust, a French songwriter, told The Independent of London in 2000: “It is hard to explain the Johnny phenomenon to foreigners. He is a good singer, but there are many singers. He is a chameleon, a performer, an actor, rather than a great musical original; a pirate of other people’s styles. But to the French he is part of our history, our psyche.” To his working-class fan base, he was a source of incredible pride, celebrated as one of their own who had ‘made it’, and still remained humble.
**But, ironically, what he was embraced for was turning American rock ‘n’ roll into French popular music, becoming France’s very own ‘Elvis’. In effect, he presented a fantasy of America: successful, fast, furious and yet vulnerable – in other words, heroic.
**He was buried last week at Saint-Barthélemy in the Antilles.
Now here’s the part that’s relevant to Lara:
“He adored America, but it never loved him back. When he released his only album in English, it was distributed only in Francophone countries. When he performed at Royal Albert Hall in London in 2012, and toured the U.S. in 2014, the venues were mostly filled with French expats or fans who had traveled there to see him perform.”
Sound familiar? On the surface, Lara should have a much more successful time in the U.S. and England, given her command of the English language, but, as we have seen, she has not put in the necessary ground-work to capitalize on this; so the above description is, more or less, applicable to her as well. Of course, there are notable differences...Lara is not nearly as popular in France, while she has a much broader international career.
As we know, Lara’s famous duet with Johnny Hallyday of ‘Requiem pour un fou” at the Stade de France helped bring her into the consciousness of the French; it can be seen at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqqVi23yakc
which has had over 1.1 million views, or
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh7e4gBHizg
with over 800,000 views, or yet again
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdq4kIpN6C4
which as can be seen, has had over 580,000 views.
What is labeled the ‘official clip’ is at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L2F-XfdsPc
Appropriately they used this song several days ago to accompany the arrival of his funeral procession in Paris, and they did mention his duet of it with Lara; this can be seen at, among other videos:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zISJRa0dqCM
(A much longer video is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ionJkxmWs).
An article concerning Lara’s experiences at the time of their duet was printed in the on-line journal DH.be,
www.dhnet.be/medias/musique/lara-fabian-a-propos-de-johnny-un-des-plus-grands-moments-de-ma-vie-5a2b8fe6cd70b488fb193227
Here’s the translation:
---------------------------------------------------
Lara Fabian apropos Johnny: One of the great moments of my life!
Lara Fabian made her debut at home in Belgium. In 1988, she represented Luxembourg on Eurovision. Then she became a superstar in Quebec. To impose her in France, her then producer, Jean-Claude Camus, had the idea to make her do a duet with Johnny Hallyday, on 'Requiem pour un fou', for 'les Enfoirés' 1998. Huge success. From there came the idea of redoing this duet onstage, at the Stade de France where Johnny was to perform from 4 to 6 September.
That September 4, 1998 was the date of the nightmare. A flood! Torrential rains! The public was there, had endured for hours, finally to hear Jean-Claude Camus announce that the show was postponed to September 11.
Lara Fabian had been behind the scenes: "I realized the next day that the fans were disappointed because Johnny did not go on stage to announce the cancellation himself, he could not have done it. He was disconcerted, he was crying, no one could approach him, I sincerely understand it. "
On the 5th and 6th, on the contrary (and also on the 11th), the duo was magnified by the symphonic orchestra and the choirs. A 'Requiem pour un fou' which had an operatic grandeur: "It was one of the greatest moments of my life, even though before I went on stage, I was literally liquefied from stage fright. From where I was I had a total vision of these 85,000 people, it was an electric shock for me. I was very lucky to be chosen, I know it and I am very proud of it. And besides, we are from the same country."
The duet had obviously been rehearsed: "We had three rehearsal sessions where we worked a lot on the performance. On the contrary, the choreography was not prepared at all. It was improvisation. Johnny did on the stage some things he had never done in rehearsal. When he threw himself on his knees, for example. That proves that anything is possible when something happens between two sincere artists. "
The after-show? "We all ended up in a restaurant, La Poule au Pot, in Les Halles, to party ... All, except Johnny!" He had something in the style: "Sorry, but I have a show tomorrow and I have to go to bed."
---------------------------------------------------
Interesting photo(s) of the week: from Lara’s Twitter account, taken at the recording of ‘Salut Bonjour’
And then, as a special treat, there is a whole series of photos that the Journal of Montreal published (thanks to Marco Duplessis on LFIAG Select for the link]. Each week, the Journal presents some marked moments in the career of an artists, via some photo memories. They can be found at:
www.journaldemontreal.com/2017/12/10/photos-souvenirs-lara-fabian
In particular, they show a picture of Lara with Rick,
storage.journaldemontreal.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx-prod-images/c5af23f5-62b2-42d5-a1ca-3486fb80ca38_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&version=0&size=968x
with the caption, “With her loving and professional accomplice of the time, the musician Rick Allison. They had met at the Crescendo piano bar in Brussels in 1989. Together, they had crossed the ocean to settle in Quebec and experienced the first successes of the singer. Separated since 1997, they are friends again.“[Although we haven’t seen Rick at any of these ‘reunions’ in Quebec].
They then show a picture of Lara on her arrival in Quebec,
storage.journaldemontreal.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx-prod-images/3f1c6496-add2-4150-b6d2-b7caaeaf74ab_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&version=0&size=1200x
with the caption, “1990. Lara Fabian, whose real name was Lara Crokaert, had just left her native Belgium, at the age of 20, for the great adventure in Quebec where she launched her first self-titled album, after having acquired a solid musical education, participated in several amateur competitions and sung in the pianos-bars of Brussels.”
The next picture is of Lara on the release of her first album,
storage.journaldemontreal.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx-prod-images/9c79caa6-c116-4247-bcc8-6e20e90df196_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&version=0&size=1200x
and the caption, “In the fall of 1991, Lara Fabian released her first album in Quebec, on which she wrote several of the lyrics, without suspecting that she would sell more than 20 million albums throughout her career. Five years later, she released her third album, Pure, on which is found her global hit Je t’aime.”
Then there is a picture of Lara holding an award with the title ‘Je suis malade’, at
storage.journaldemontreal.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx-prod-images/8858d6e9-7fd3-429e-8deb-22528d264f5c_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&version=0&size=1200x
At the 1995 Adisq Gala, Lara won the Singer and Show of the Year trophies. That same year, Serge Lama invited her to sing with him, 'Je suis malade', at the Palais des congrès in Paris, a song she'd had on her second album, Carpe Diem. The following year, she was granted Canadian citizenship at the age of 26.
They then note:
**Twenty years after the global hit "Je t’aime" and 20 million albums sold, Lara Fabian launches a new English album called Camouflage. This album, designed between Brussels, Stockholm and Los Angeles, constitutes the fourth English-language album for someone who sings in a dozen languages.
**Lara Fabian will coach, along with Alex Nevsky, Eric Lapointe and Garou, for the next season of La Voix aired this winter at TVA.
**Lara Fabian will go back and forth between Quebec, the United States and Europe (in particular in Russia, Romania, England, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Ukraine, Turkey, Belgium and France), where she will present the show of her new world tour, The Camouflage World Tour. The premiere of the tour will take place in Miami on February 2 at Jackie Gleason Theater. [Note – she will not be in England, even though it would make perfect sense, which is probably why it was included; nor, so far, in Turkey].
**Shows in Quebec will be announced soon. [This would also make perfect sense given all the publicity; we’ll see if it happens].
And for a last picture, we choose a poignant photo of Lara and Johnny from their duet,
i.ytimg.com/vi/W2FwRaNCcNo/hqdefault.jpg
Tomorrow (12/12) Lara’s appearance on Noel Gospel will air, and some of the other shows she’s recorded may also start appearing. This is while Lara is presumably back in Belgium with her mother. Hopefully that will go as well as possible…this time of year, any unhappy situation tends to be magnified, as we have seen with the recent passings of national icons.
David
Lara was on the show ‘Ensemble, pour Noel’, and her extended appearance, including her performance of “We Are the Flyers” and an ensemble version of “Glory Alleluiah” can be seen at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiQXA_0O8Uc
or equivalently,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGXAhwC0_8I
[if they’re still there...a previous attempt to show it was removed; if not, one can also see it on the Lara Fabian Greece FB site, at
www.facebook.com/larafabiangreece/videos/828377267287368/]
Lara clearly stands out on Gory Alleluiah, both in her vocals and the color of her attire!
One is again struck by the supreme irony that Lara finally returns to Quebec in a serious way for the first time in more than 15 years, and it is with her first full-scale English album in more than a decade - normally an anathema for a Francophone artist in that province. Could there have been worse timing?...C’est la vie...Although her continual exposure is having some effect: the album has appeared on the Canadian iTunes charts, at #58. (It’s #64 on the Belgian charts, up from #77 last week).
Yesterday morning, Lara was on the show ‘Salut Bonjour’ on TVA; her performance of ‘Growing Wings’ can be seen at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvfOQ33eoX4
and her singing of ‘Petit Papa Noel’ can be seen at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-FfBxUoxHE
In addition, an interview on the show in which she discussed Johnny Halliday’s influence on her ‘destiny’, the ‘gifts’ she has received of her return to Quebec and her time on La Voix, and her new album is available in a video at, among other youtube threads,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnIhE6u6j4M
Lara has some more shows coming up...e.g., she will appear on “Deux filles le matin" next Wednesday on a special "Noël Gospel” a small portion of which can be seen on the promo,
www.facebook.com/2filleslematin/videos/10155580963370971/
According to the (translated) discussion of the show, (http://tva.canoe.ca/emissions/2filleslematin/cette-semaine2-filles):
-----------------------------------------------
“Christmas festivities continue for ‘2filles le matin’ while gospel invades our studios. Synonymous with joy, gathering and gratitude, this music will ignite our hearts and put us in the mood of the holidays! Marie-Claude and her guest of the week, France Castel, are surrounded by Lara Fabian, Lulu Hughes and Gregory Charles to share vibrant Christmas memories. A true gospel specialist, Greg teaches us more about the origins, evolution, and the influence of this kind of music, but most importantly, we understand that gospel, it sings, it dances... and it lives!”
-----------------------------------------------
As to what Lara’s plans are for the holiday, that is partially explained in an article appearing at
www.journaldemontreal.com/2017/12/08/la-famille-avant-tout, translated below:
———————————————————
The Family Before All
Back in Quebec to participate in the next season of La Voix , Lara Fabian will still have to go back and forth to Belgium during the holidays. The singer plans to go find her mother Luisa with DCL, a degenerative disease close to Alzheimer's.
“I have my dad and mom there. Mom has a fragile health and I'm going to take care of her for a few days, and then I'll come back here”, she says, met at the recording of the special show ‘Ensemble, pour Noël’ at the Corona Theater.
However, her return to the Belle Province with her husband Gabriel Di Giorgio and her 10-year-old daughter Lou represents a happy change for the star's family.
"To come back here is one of the most beautiful things that happened to me this year. I live it with so much gratitude. My daughter really loves Quebec. It's really a wonderful gift”, she says.
————————————————————
Going back home to Belgium under these circumstances must be a somewhat mixed blessing...Since she says she will be doing that for just a few days, it’s possible that her husband and daughter have remained in Quebec and she’ll rejoin them before Christmas.
And then there was, as I’m sure you know by now, the passing of Johnny Hallyday. Once again Lara had to post a sad video, this one at:
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/videos/1831434926897996/
Here’s (translated) what Lara said: “There are some people who pass in our lives and transform our destinies. Johnny, we'll miss you so much. This is what you are a creator of destinies, joys, happiness, infinite love. I cannot imagine that today you are already high among the stars and at the same time, that's where you come from, for me, and this is where you belong. Thank you, thank you for doing what you did in this life. All I want is that we can find you in the next one. See you soon somewhere.”
‘Paris Match’ had an article discussing Lara’s comments (http://www.parismatch.com/People/L-hommage-bouleversant-de-Lara-Fabian-a-Johnny-Hallyday-1411304); here’s the translation:
----------------------------------------------------
The Heartbreaking Tribute of Lara Fabian to Johnny Hallyday
Alexia Malige
Paris Match
Deeply touched by the disappearance of Johnny Hallyday, Lara Fabian addressed a last goodbye to the singer in a moving video.
He sang "I love you", she sang "I love you". Johnny Hallyday and Lara Fabian celebrated the love and passion on stage. A common taste for romance and the beautiful words they had lived side by side during exceptional events. Both had gathered at a legendary concert at the Stade de France in September 1998, where their duo had become legendary. On the title "Requiem for a fool", they had given voice, all their voice. A real exchange of titans that had marked the history of French song by its strength and intensity.
A Goodbye Full of Tenderness
Upon hearing of Johnny Hallyday's death on Wednesday, Lara Fabian decided to record a poignant message, which she posted on Facebook. "There are people passing through our lives and transforming our destinies," she says with emotion. "I can not imagine that today you are already up there among the stars and at the same time, that's where you come from, for me, and that's where you belong.” The singer of "Immortelle" has a trembling voice, tears in her eyes. Losing Johnny is like losing your mentor to her. A model of power, accuracy and sincerity that will be missed.
But in this moment of sadness and pain, Lara Fabian manages to find the words. Simple, beautiful and poetic. "Thank you," she told him. "Thank you for doing what you did in this life. All I want is that we can find you in the next one. See you soon somewhere."
---------------------------------------
As the article said, beautiful words from Lara…unfortunately, once again. It seems like several of these masters of song decided the end of the year was the appropriate time to ‘check out’.
Most of the following is obviously off-topic, but some of it is not. The NY Times had a full page obituary for Johnny Hallyday (as they had done for Dmitri Hvorostovsky the week before). Here are the salient points:
**He died of lung cancer, at the age of 74.
**He sold more than 100 million records, acted in more than 30 films, and appeared on the cover of Paris March dozens of times.
**His hard drinking, car crashes, wild partying and tempestuous love life made him a permanent headline in the French popular press.
**Of particular interest was his roller-coaster relationship and his on-again, off-again marriage to the singer and actress Sylvie Vartan; this led him to attempt suicide twice.
**He was born Jean-Philippe Smet in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1943, to a mother who was a model and father, a Belgian circus performer (and a Nazi collaborator). They divorced soon after his birth.
**He was actually raised by a paternal aunt Helene, a former silent-film actress. They had two singing daughters, and the family traveled all over Europe; his American father called him ‘Johnny’, while the family stage name was the Hallidays. He was the on-stage ‘mascot’, singing while the girls changed clothes.
**What changed his life was seeing Elvis Presley – he said the first time he saw him, “his voice, the way he moved, everything was sexy”, and that “I was paralyzed” by it.
**So he then started singing American rock songs in and around Paris, and was signed by Vogue Records – who misspelled the name Halliday on the cover of his first album. The misspelling (Hallyday) then stuck!
**Like Presley, he pursued a second career as an actor, but in his case, he eventually won serious critical respect.
**He made a point to keep up with changes in music. Over time he switched from hard-rock to breathy ballads, in the tradition of Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf. He also worked with top talent outside France. Therefore, after the early 1980s, he never really had a lull in his career.
**While to Elvis Presley’s compatriots, he was derided as an ‘imposter’, Arnold Turboust, a French songwriter, told The Independent of London in 2000: “It is hard to explain the Johnny phenomenon to foreigners. He is a good singer, but there are many singers. He is a chameleon, a performer, an actor, rather than a great musical original; a pirate of other people’s styles. But to the French he is part of our history, our psyche.” To his working-class fan base, he was a source of incredible pride, celebrated as one of their own who had ‘made it’, and still remained humble.
**But, ironically, what he was embraced for was turning American rock ‘n’ roll into French popular music, becoming France’s very own ‘Elvis’. In effect, he presented a fantasy of America: successful, fast, furious and yet vulnerable – in other words, heroic.
**He was buried last week at Saint-Barthélemy in the Antilles.
Now here’s the part that’s relevant to Lara:
“He adored America, but it never loved him back. When he released his only album in English, it was distributed only in Francophone countries. When he performed at Royal Albert Hall in London in 2012, and toured the U.S. in 2014, the venues were mostly filled with French expats or fans who had traveled there to see him perform.”
Sound familiar? On the surface, Lara should have a much more successful time in the U.S. and England, given her command of the English language, but, as we have seen, she has not put in the necessary ground-work to capitalize on this; so the above description is, more or less, applicable to her as well. Of course, there are notable differences...Lara is not nearly as popular in France, while she has a much broader international career.
As we know, Lara’s famous duet with Johnny Hallyday of ‘Requiem pour un fou” at the Stade de France helped bring her into the consciousness of the French; it can be seen at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqqVi23yakc
which has had over 1.1 million views, or
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh7e4gBHizg
with over 800,000 views, or yet again
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdq4kIpN6C4
which as can be seen, has had over 580,000 views.
What is labeled the ‘official clip’ is at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L2F-XfdsPc
Appropriately they used this song several days ago to accompany the arrival of his funeral procession in Paris, and they did mention his duet of it with Lara; this can be seen at, among other videos:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zISJRa0dqCM
(A much longer video is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ionJkxmWs).
An article concerning Lara’s experiences at the time of their duet was printed in the on-line journal DH.be,
www.dhnet.be/medias/musique/lara-fabian-a-propos-de-johnny-un-des-plus-grands-moments-de-ma-vie-5a2b8fe6cd70b488fb193227
Here’s the translation:
---------------------------------------------------
Lara Fabian apropos Johnny: One of the great moments of my life!
Lara Fabian made her debut at home in Belgium. In 1988, she represented Luxembourg on Eurovision. Then she became a superstar in Quebec. To impose her in France, her then producer, Jean-Claude Camus, had the idea to make her do a duet with Johnny Hallyday, on 'Requiem pour un fou', for 'les Enfoirés' 1998. Huge success. From there came the idea of redoing this duet onstage, at the Stade de France where Johnny was to perform from 4 to 6 September.
That September 4, 1998 was the date of the nightmare. A flood! Torrential rains! The public was there, had endured for hours, finally to hear Jean-Claude Camus announce that the show was postponed to September 11.
Lara Fabian had been behind the scenes: "I realized the next day that the fans were disappointed because Johnny did not go on stage to announce the cancellation himself, he could not have done it. He was disconcerted, he was crying, no one could approach him, I sincerely understand it. "
On the 5th and 6th, on the contrary (and also on the 11th), the duo was magnified by the symphonic orchestra and the choirs. A 'Requiem pour un fou' which had an operatic grandeur: "It was one of the greatest moments of my life, even though before I went on stage, I was literally liquefied from stage fright. From where I was I had a total vision of these 85,000 people, it was an electric shock for me. I was very lucky to be chosen, I know it and I am very proud of it. And besides, we are from the same country."
The duet had obviously been rehearsed: "We had three rehearsal sessions where we worked a lot on the performance. On the contrary, the choreography was not prepared at all. It was improvisation. Johnny did on the stage some things he had never done in rehearsal. When he threw himself on his knees, for example. That proves that anything is possible when something happens between two sincere artists. "
The after-show? "We all ended up in a restaurant, La Poule au Pot, in Les Halles, to party ... All, except Johnny!" He had something in the style: "Sorry, but I have a show tomorrow and I have to go to bed."
---------------------------------------------------
Interesting photo(s) of the week: from Lara’s Twitter account, taken at the recording of ‘Salut Bonjour’
And then, as a special treat, there is a whole series of photos that the Journal of Montreal published (thanks to Marco Duplessis on LFIAG Select for the link]. Each week, the Journal presents some marked moments in the career of an artists, via some photo memories. They can be found at:
www.journaldemontreal.com/2017/12/10/photos-souvenirs-lara-fabian
In particular, they show a picture of Lara with Rick,
storage.journaldemontreal.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx-prod-images/c5af23f5-62b2-42d5-a1ca-3486fb80ca38_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&version=0&size=968x
with the caption, “With her loving and professional accomplice of the time, the musician Rick Allison. They had met at the Crescendo piano bar in Brussels in 1989. Together, they had crossed the ocean to settle in Quebec and experienced the first successes of the singer. Separated since 1997, they are friends again.“[Although we haven’t seen Rick at any of these ‘reunions’ in Quebec].
They then show a picture of Lara on her arrival in Quebec,
storage.journaldemontreal.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx-prod-images/3f1c6496-add2-4150-b6d2-b7caaeaf74ab_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&version=0&size=1200x
with the caption, “1990. Lara Fabian, whose real name was Lara Crokaert, had just left her native Belgium, at the age of 20, for the great adventure in Quebec where she launched her first self-titled album, after having acquired a solid musical education, participated in several amateur competitions and sung in the pianos-bars of Brussels.”
The next picture is of Lara on the release of her first album,
storage.journaldemontreal.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx-prod-images/9c79caa6-c116-4247-bcc8-6e20e90df196_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&version=0&size=1200x
and the caption, “In the fall of 1991, Lara Fabian released her first album in Quebec, on which she wrote several of the lyrics, without suspecting that she would sell more than 20 million albums throughout her career. Five years later, she released her third album, Pure, on which is found her global hit Je t’aime.”
Then there is a picture of Lara holding an award with the title ‘Je suis malade’, at
storage.journaldemontreal.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx-prod-images/8858d6e9-7fd3-429e-8deb-22528d264f5c_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&version=0&size=1200x
At the 1995 Adisq Gala, Lara won the Singer and Show of the Year trophies. That same year, Serge Lama invited her to sing with him, 'Je suis malade', at the Palais des congrès in Paris, a song she'd had on her second album, Carpe Diem. The following year, she was granted Canadian citizenship at the age of 26.
They then note:
**Twenty years after the global hit "Je t’aime" and 20 million albums sold, Lara Fabian launches a new English album called Camouflage. This album, designed between Brussels, Stockholm and Los Angeles, constitutes the fourth English-language album for someone who sings in a dozen languages.
**Lara Fabian will coach, along with Alex Nevsky, Eric Lapointe and Garou, for the next season of La Voix aired this winter at TVA.
**Lara Fabian will go back and forth between Quebec, the United States and Europe (in particular in Russia, Romania, England, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Ukraine, Turkey, Belgium and France), where she will present the show of her new world tour, The Camouflage World Tour. The premiere of the tour will take place in Miami on February 2 at Jackie Gleason Theater. [Note – she will not be in England, even though it would make perfect sense, which is probably why it was included; nor, so far, in Turkey].
**Shows in Quebec will be announced soon. [This would also make perfect sense given all the publicity; we’ll see if it happens].
And for a last picture, we choose a poignant photo of Lara and Johnny from their duet,
i.ytimg.com/vi/W2FwRaNCcNo/hqdefault.jpg
Tomorrow (12/12) Lara’s appearance on Noel Gospel will air, and some of the other shows she’s recorded may also start appearing. This is while Lara is presumably back in Belgium with her mother. Hopefully that will go as well as possible…this time of year, any unhappy situation tends to be magnified, as we have seen with the recent passings of national icons.
David
