Post by davidhr on Feb 14, 2012 17:26:02 GMT -5
The big news this week of course was Lara’s concert today for Lebanon (the news update was delayed a bit to be able to cover it). As shown on mtv Lebanon TV, the one hour concert (with commercials) covered Lara’s usual favorite songs in French and English but also included duets with Amel Bent (Mistral Gagnant), Anggun (Tue es mon autre), Véronic Dicaire (Bridge Over Troubled Waters), and Sofia Essaîdi (John Lennon’s Imagine). It was a classy show; Lara did not say anything overly political, but quotes from various authors appeared on the screen before many of the songs, and some of these could be read as commentary on the situation that forced this event. As advertized, the songs did emphasize Love, as did Lara’s initial statement, with the most political song commentary in ‘Imagine’ with its line about ‘all the world living as one’.
The unique titles all came in the duets, and one suspects they might have been the choice of Lara’s co-singers: “Imagine” and “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” are especially to be cherished. For those recording it off the internet, there were occasional annoying dropouts, probably varying depending upon where one lives. We’ll see if a version emerges unscathed on the internet, or recorded directly from a TV transmission. Videos from it are already appearing on youtube.
An amusing bookends to the show was Lara opening with a version of “Je t’aime” straight out of her ETI shows, while Veronic Dicaire got to sing it with all its power over the closing credits. All in all , a very enjoyable performance. Ironically, it’s probably a better record for Lara’s fans outside of Lebanon then they would have had (from fan videos) if she had gone there.
In other news, Lara did put a video clip montage of the Paris concert on her facebook site, in the videos section, at:
www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150609813844288
Also very classy, and includes Lara’s emotional reaction to the fans singing ‘Pas sans toi’ to her. As noted previously, there are enough high quality videos of the various songs on youtube that we didn’t have to depend on Gerard making the whole concert available (although that would have been nice).
Lara marked the occasion of the death of Whitney Houston with a message on her official site. It is reproduced here for emphasis:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The world’s greatest souls are often subjected to the most powerful demons... The proportional forces confront each other until a crucial choice determines the path... The choice of light isn't easy to choose, the darkness is always there to threaten… The disappearance of the greatest pop Diva is a tragedy and an unacceptable loss for those who vibrate to the sound of her divine voice... her voice that by itself could enlighten life and heal our hearts... but her loss is also a guardrail whose violent expression reminds us all that Life is a following of choices which lead to our deeper selves, at the end of ourselves... I can't express the immensity of my pain... Words won't be right... so today like every time when my soul bleeds... I will sing with my eyes closed... but this time, for her... I will always love you...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leave it to Lara to address dramatic occurrences with a philosophical/moral discourse, to try to make sense of it in a greater perspective. Of course we remember Lara’s great renditions of ‘I Will Always Love You’; there are several but my favorite is at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxnk-VCXZYg
Interestingly, Lara wrote her message about the difficulty in choosing light over dark as it applied in this case before it has become clear that ‘darkness’ played a direct role in Whitney Houston’s death – although one supposes that the death of a 48 year old is unlikely to be from ‘natural causes’.
Lara and Pierre Yves Duschesne were interviewed for Pitiblog on the occasion of the International Comedy Competition (CICM). Lara mentions that Pierre as her current voice coach is sort of from the same lineage, the Viennese classical school, as her voice teacher in Quebec, Lucette, even though he’s younger. They both teach ‘verticality’, which involves making sure your voice is centered/grounded (which Lara says works for life as well). The complete interview (in French) can be found at:
www.ptitblog.net/Pierre-Yves-Duchesne/interview-6670.html
Lara is still getting publicity in Russia, despite her absence. ‘Maestro’ on the Russian site noted that Radio 7 (104.7 FM in Moscow) is having a ‘Lara Fabian Week’ (Feb. 13-19) in which at the end of each hour from 1100 to 2100 they play one of Lara’s songs, to celebrate love around the world. [This is more than is happening for her in France!]
There are no public events scheduled for Lara until her concerts next month. In the article for Pitiblog she noted that the reason ‘Le Secret’ will take so long to appear is that she’s not sure of its direction and is thus depending on the fans input, as she said in Paris. Hence we shouldn’t imagine that she is actively working on it. The fate of the ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ film, and any further distribution of the CD still is no clearer. The concert this week may thus turn out to be one of the highlights of Lara’s year.
David
The unique titles all came in the duets, and one suspects they might have been the choice of Lara’s co-singers: “Imagine” and “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” are especially to be cherished. For those recording it off the internet, there were occasional annoying dropouts, probably varying depending upon where one lives. We’ll see if a version emerges unscathed on the internet, or recorded directly from a TV transmission. Videos from it are already appearing on youtube.
An amusing bookends to the show was Lara opening with a version of “Je t’aime” straight out of her ETI shows, while Veronic Dicaire got to sing it with all its power over the closing credits. All in all , a very enjoyable performance. Ironically, it’s probably a better record for Lara’s fans outside of Lebanon then they would have had (from fan videos) if she had gone there.
In other news, Lara did put a video clip montage of the Paris concert on her facebook site, in the videos section, at:
www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150609813844288
Also very classy, and includes Lara’s emotional reaction to the fans singing ‘Pas sans toi’ to her. As noted previously, there are enough high quality videos of the various songs on youtube that we didn’t have to depend on Gerard making the whole concert available (although that would have been nice).
Lara marked the occasion of the death of Whitney Houston with a message on her official site. It is reproduced here for emphasis:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The world’s greatest souls are often subjected to the most powerful demons... The proportional forces confront each other until a crucial choice determines the path... The choice of light isn't easy to choose, the darkness is always there to threaten… The disappearance of the greatest pop Diva is a tragedy and an unacceptable loss for those who vibrate to the sound of her divine voice... her voice that by itself could enlighten life and heal our hearts... but her loss is also a guardrail whose violent expression reminds us all that Life is a following of choices which lead to our deeper selves, at the end of ourselves... I can't express the immensity of my pain... Words won't be right... so today like every time when my soul bleeds... I will sing with my eyes closed... but this time, for her... I will always love you...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leave it to Lara to address dramatic occurrences with a philosophical/moral discourse, to try to make sense of it in a greater perspective. Of course we remember Lara’s great renditions of ‘I Will Always Love You’; there are several but my favorite is at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxnk-VCXZYg
Interestingly, Lara wrote her message about the difficulty in choosing light over dark as it applied in this case before it has become clear that ‘darkness’ played a direct role in Whitney Houston’s death – although one supposes that the death of a 48 year old is unlikely to be from ‘natural causes’.
Lara and Pierre Yves Duschesne were interviewed for Pitiblog on the occasion of the International Comedy Competition (CICM). Lara mentions that Pierre as her current voice coach is sort of from the same lineage, the Viennese classical school, as her voice teacher in Quebec, Lucette, even though he’s younger. They both teach ‘verticality’, which involves making sure your voice is centered/grounded (which Lara says works for life as well). The complete interview (in French) can be found at:
www.ptitblog.net/Pierre-Yves-Duchesne/interview-6670.html
Lara is still getting publicity in Russia, despite her absence. ‘Maestro’ on the Russian site noted that Radio 7 (104.7 FM in Moscow) is having a ‘Lara Fabian Week’ (Feb. 13-19) in which at the end of each hour from 1100 to 2100 they play one of Lara’s songs, to celebrate love around the world. [This is more than is happening for her in France!]
There are no public events scheduled for Lara until her concerts next month. In the article for Pitiblog she noted that the reason ‘Le Secret’ will take so long to appear is that she’s not sure of its direction and is thus depending on the fans input, as she said in Paris. Hence we shouldn’t imagine that she is actively working on it. The fate of the ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ film, and any further distribution of the CD still is no clearer. The concert this week may thus turn out to be one of the highlights of Lara’s year.
David