Post by davidhr on Dec 30, 2014 9:53:16 GMT -5
A quiet holiday week publicly for Lara. She will next be seen appearing on the ‘Song of the Year’ 2014’ show to be broadcast in Russia on New Year’s day. Lara performed “Love of Tired Swans”, her new Russian single, when it was taped on December 7th. The ‘Lara Fabian Connecting People’ and ‘Lara Fabian Mexico’ site provided the video of the broadcast version, ahead of time; it can be seen at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSnn9hJjySg
As usual for this show, lip-synched but beautiful.
In addition, she wished (Russian) people a happy New Year on the Song of the Year promo (also thanks to Lara Fabian Mexico) at:
www.facebook.com/video.php?v=775862705801125&set=vb.556364357750962
We will take that as her Happy New Year to us, as well!
And this follows her wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone on her FB site:
“Joyeux Noël à tous ! Merry Christmas everyone !”
It is appropriate that Lara once again begins the New Year on TV in a ‘foreign’ country, as the first six months of the year will be largely associated with her international excursions. In that regard, the Lara Fabian Web FB site noted that there is a small article about Lara and her ‘Greatest Hits 2015’ tour in Atlantic City. It can be seen at:
www.facebook.com/246805652001644/photos/a.247913198557556.83420.246805652001644/992487227433479/
Note the name change for the tour – is not called the ‘Best of’ tour anymore. But although it contains many of Lara’s ‘greatest hits’ or ‘best of’, it also contains a number of songs that wouldn’t really qualify in that regard, but are there for diversity or topicality. Nevertheless, it is a nice mix…
The Lara Fabian – PHQ site created a poster for the concerts so far, available at:
www.facebook.com/353946178085395/photos/a.353954938084519.1073741828.353946178085395/594855040661173/
Some fans have indicated that they have been told the show in Tel Aviv has been changed to February 28th, although it is still officially given on Lara’s site as the 21st. Perhaps this delay was due to her having to be in Italy from the 10th to the 14th for the San Remo festival. The change has still not been officially confirmed by Lara’s people. A small article on Lara in ‘TLV People” still lists it as the 21st.
www.facebook.com/246805652001644/photos/a.247913198557556.83420.246805652001644/991162057565996
As for Lara’s upcoming show in Brooklyn on January 31st, for which most of the seats have been sold, its title is now called “"A Night with composer Igor Krutoy". Lara is listed as a ‘special guest’, though we don’t know whether that means a set closer to the 44 minutes as in two of the previous Krutoi ‘galas’, or 10 minutes as in the TV broadcast version.
Lara’s influence in Russia is continuing to grow, and an indication is that three of the couples’ presentations for the 2015 Russian Nationals ice skating exhibition have used Lara’s songs/recordings (thanks to the Lara Fabian –PHQ site for the links). The videos, first with ‘Je t’aime’, then ‘Adagio’ and finally with ‘I Guess I Loved You’ can be seen at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uASrAXHNQ10
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHy3U9ShMyk
and
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvQFAlY5-K0
Continuing with the Russian flavor of this update, ‘Irinia Popova’ on the ‘Lara Fabian Connecting People’ site produced a video of the important events in Lara’s life for 2014. It is proceeding in parts. The ‘early part of the year’ can be seen at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2jfrMezNO4
while the summer is at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWU_pk-Q-JA
‘Later in the year’ will presumably be coming up shortly.
And in that spirit, below is our Year in Review 2014 for Lara. Happy New Year 2015 to Lara and to all of you!
-------------------------------------------
2014: A Year of Seclusion, Inactivity and Healing, Followed by a More International Focus
The year 2014 will go down for Lara as her most challenging in a decade, although the damage that precipitated it actually occurred the year before. In May, 2013, a stage technician had inadvertently sent a high frequency sound through Lara’s earphones during a rehearsal, damaging the hearing in her left ear. While Lara was literally ‘knocked off’ her perch by the event, and went to the hospital, the true extent of the damage ("Acoustic Shock Disorder") was not apparent until the fall of 2013, when she returned to the concert stage. Her hearing progressively deteriorated until, we have since learned, it had been reduced to 20% (not clear whether this refers to her hearing in total, or primarily to her left ear). She kept her concert tour alive by cancelling specific events, allowing for some recuperation, and hence was able to successfully negotiate concerts in New York at the end of 2013, and in Quebec (including Montreal) and Toronto the first two weeks of 2014 (where her ‘older hits’ were appreciated far more than the new songs from ‘Le Secret’). By then it became apparent that this approach was not working, and she was in danger of complete deafness in that ear.
So on January 17, 2014, Lara announced in a video on her FB site that she was cancelling the rest of her tour of France, one that was supposed to have occupied most of the first half of the year. She said she was going to try to really get well by staying away from excessive noise and by taking medication. She felt that if she continued, she wouldn’t have been able to give 100%, and so she was obeying the doctor’s advice. She apologized to all those who had not gotten to see her because of this, and to her touring companions, who would now be out of work. In response, her fans offered many forms of support, from cards and emails to self-created videos.
This set in motion some six months of relative isolation, where Lara had to insulate herself from loud sounds, for part of the time could not go to restaurants or movies or even have her child talk to her at a normal volume. She repeatedly visited the local outpatient clinic to take high doses of steroids (and felt poorly afterwards). As would be natural, she worried about what her hearing and future would become, since listening through earphones was an integral part of the work she did. A time of having to patiently wait for recovery, and likely for soul searching as well…
There were a few signs of activity associated with Lara during this period. A new version of ‘La vie est la’ was released as a single, in what was probably a pre-planned attempt to push sales of ‘Le Secret’ to coincide with the now-cancelled tour (it also included the duet with Laura Pausini of Il canto-Je chante). It was picked up by some radio stations and provided the album with a brief spurt on the charts. Lara also left some messages on her FB site of thanks to the fans for their support. The ‘imaginary’ couples photos of Lara and Eva Longoria taken by Olivier Ciappa appeared in public in Paris, and later throughout the country. But she missed several charity events that she may well have attended otherwise.
Lara was aided by having knowledgeable doctors, and her spirits were lifted by tests that showed the process was working, and her hearing was gradually recovering. This eventually allowed her to venture outside into more public venues – during mid-winter she vacationed at a quiet summer resort on the Island of St. Malo; in March she was seen attending the new version of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ in Paris, and people spoke to her in shops and restaurants; in April she was spotted in Sicily, likely visiting family members and was at the ‘Make A Wish’ show in Brussels. Nevertheless, these were few and far between, and the first half of 2014 featured no public performances or even many media interactions. A time for healing…
But also a time for planning and a re-orientation. In the message announcing her tour cancellation, Lara said she felt frustrated that she would not be able to continue the promotion of ‘Le Secret’, an album in which she felt she bared her soul (and sang magnificently). The album sold just 57,000 copies in France, about 75,000 overall, despite having debuted at #1 in the French charts. This was even less than the critically-reviled ‘Toutes les femmes en moi’, which sold 77,000 in France alone (100,000 overall), or the second English album ‘A Wonderful Life’, released back in 2004 with absolutely no promotion, which had 82,000 sales in France (150,000 overall). Yes, album sales are declining for everyone, but ‘Le Secret’ was in the top 100 on the French charts for just 11 weeks, compared to 25 for TLFM. The lack of continued touring undoubtedly hurt “Le Secret’, although by the time of her cancellation it had been out for close to 9 months. Overall, it was the 92nd best selling album in France in 2013. There were rumors that the advance sales for a number of the venues on the cancelled tour were far from full, and a small (but vocal) portion of Lara’s audience was convinced that it was that, rather than health issues, that caused the cancellation. [These don’t have to be unrelated – why risk one’s health for sparse audiences?]. It was probably becoming clear to Lara that she could no longer survive professionally depending primarily on her Francophone fans, regardless of how passionate her ‘angels’ were.
Lara had often referred to herself as a ‘citizen of the world’, and had given concerts in many countries, but following her days in Quebec in the ‘90s, she had generally retreated back to France and Belgium after any international sojourn, which was usually of short duration. The one exception that had been growing in recent years were her tours of Russia; and even before her injury, she had initiated tours of Eastern Europe and western Asia on a somewhat more regular basis. And her concerts in New York and Toronto were the first ever. But she had avoided Western Europe, in particular Germany and Italy, even though they were ‘right in her backyard’. However, in the midst of her ‘retreat’, venues in Germany were still selling tickets for concerts that were planned for the autumn, and in April, a more extensive fall tour became apparent, with stops also in Lithuania (Kaunas), the Czech Republic (Prague), Romania (Bucharest), Bulgaria (Sofia) and Finland (Helsinki and Turku). Apparently Lara felt she would be sufficiently recovered to perform by then, and it would be 'foreign' countries that would witness her return.
By the summer, Lara was beginning to rev back into action. For many years she had attended the “New Wave Festival’ in Latvia, run by Igor Krutoi, and Lara agreed to be present this year as well. Yet even prior to that, in early July, she performed at a private concert in Moscow. It turned out to be a good way to test her capacity, featuring minimal musician support and thus controlled sound levels. News also surfaced that the coming fall concerts would be acoustic in nature, “Lara Fabian-unplugged” as they were called. In an interview some time later, Lara acknowledged that this was done at least in part to protect her ears (although in practice, they were not that much different from her usual performances).
Lara’s appearance at the New Wave Festival in late July did mark her return to action before the public, though because the songs were probably done with lip-synching, that would not have required her to really sing under pressure. Nevertheless, as it became apparent she was sufficiently on the road to recovery that her career had, in effect, ‘resumed’, public attention shifted back to that career (as did these News Updates). Lara ‘performed’ two news songs, “Furious” and “Running”, both with music written by Igor Krutoi, and that led to further speculation that “Mademoiselle Zhivago II”, their next album together would soon be available - we’ve already heard two other new songs that may be from it, ‘Angel Fly Away’ and “Yin and Yang’. [That new album speculation still exists, although we’ve not seen any further evidence of such a release]. Instead, her recording career ramped up into full activity with the release in August of the duet of “Make Me Yours Tonight’, sung with Mustafa Ceceli from Turkey. The single, in two versions and accompanied by a video, became a big hit in that country, another new international venue for Lara, and the title has since become part of her recent repertoire. Lara herself joined Ceceli in concert in mid-August, and this time sang live before the public. Lara’s ‘Turkish’ adventure was clearly one of the highlights of her year.
Her acoustic concert tour opened in early October with four shows in Germany. It was a ‘best of’ set list containing (for the first time) slightly more English songs than French (with one each in Italian and Spanish, and occasionally one in Russia). She spoke to the audience primarily in English. It continued through the aforementioned various countries for the rest of the month, and after a break, added shows in Baku, Azerbaijan in November, and Chisinau, Moldova in December. Two highlights from the show in Baku included her singing a traditional folk song ‘Sari Gelin’ in the Azeri language, and also doing a breathtakingly cute impromptu duet with an eight year old girl who asked to come up on the stage. Throughout all the shows Lara was in great voice, as good as we’ve heard her in years. Her only obvious health issue was a cold that affected her performances in Romania and Bulgaria, but Lara soldiered through. She indicated that now she was restricted to a 90 minute show, without electric instrumentation, and that after each concert had to be in a quiet place and receive medication. But her hearing was up to 80% (presumably in her left ear) and she could perform! The shows were characterized by full audiences providing amazing support, and lavish praise in the press and by her fans; she gave numerous interviews and was the subject of news programs and videos. She could have no doubt that she was being fully appreciated.
Lara also ‘returned’ to her Russian audience in November and December, with performances at three Gala presentations honoring Igor Krutoi’s 60th birthday. In two of them her set list of eight songs lasted some 45 minutes, and on the other show, her three songs were ultimately seen by the broader Russian public as the event was recorded and televised on consecutive weekends. Her interaction with Krutoi deepened further for she recorded a Russian version of ‘Je t’aime encore’ entitled ‘Lubov ustavshikh lebedey’ (English translation: ‘Love of Tired Swans”) with new, Russian lyrics written by the poet Mikhail Gutseriev. It was released as a single, there appeared to be a video, and Lara’s performance of it was seen on TV.
Helping her on these international ventures, and perhaps pushing her as well, was a new manager (Pierre Sarazin) and a new production company (PRG EML), while a new record company (Odacity) provided distribution in certain countries (e.g., Turkey). Sarazin gave the following statement, “I’ve installed a brand new team around Lara. My goal is to keep this team, grow together and give a stable environment to Lara, both technically and humanly. Before each show I want everything to be perfect so that Lara doesn’t have to care about anything [other] than the songs. Later, when Lara will be back on bigger stages and other areas, I know I will be able to count on PRG as a worldwide group. I can definitely use the PRG network and rely on the support of other subsidiaries in France, USA, Brazil and so on.“
As implied by the following statement, Lara’s international appearances are not being confined to the fall of 2014. PRG EML Productions issued a press release, saying,“We are delighted to accompany Belgian-Canadian singer Lara Fabian on an intimate tour that will take her through Germany, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Slovakia and the USA”. In addition to the shows already performed, a new tour covering many of these countries (plus Israel) is set for the late winter and spring of 2015, with concerts possibly still being added. It will again be a ‘Best of’ tour – in this case called ‘Greatest Hits’ - and a DVD of one of the concerts will be filmed in the Czech Republic next June. And while this year Lara finally got around to the ‘next door’ country of Germany, next February she will be in San Remo, Italy as the first ‘foreign’ entrant in their major singing competition, with a new Italian song (‘Voce’). The winner gets to represent Italy in the 2015 Eurovision contest. If she were to win, an “Italian” adventure might become the lead story next year. As Lara said, sometimes you have to take a long path to get back home (she has often said she considers herself, basically, Italian).
This new tour will also have for the first time a North American flavor. It will include, in an abbreviated form, four cities in the U.S. and three more in Canada. Her U.S. venues seem weighted towards locales reachable by a Russian-speaking population, perhaps as a result of her Carnegie Hall experience last year where the hall was sold out largely due to the Russian-speaking contingent. In fact, her upcoming New York appearance will be part of (yet another) gala celebration for Krutoi. In Canada, in addition to Montreal and Toronto, she will for the first time sing on the far west coast near Vancouver; assuming a similar ‘Best of’ set list to what we saw this fall, it will also be her first venture singing so many songs in English in English-speaking Canada. It has been suggested the tour will cover South American venues as well (if so, most likely Brazil), although nothing has yet been announced. Perhaps coincidentally, but nevertheless importantly, for the first time all of Lara’s albums (both French and English) have appeared on the international music sites around the world, including amazon.com and iTunes.
As one might expect, this concentration on the world at large (and her speaking primarily in English on international concert stages and to the international media) did not go over well with some of Lara’s Francophone fans. They were irritated that she did not choose to make up the concerts that had been cancelled from the first half of the year, or even provide a single ‘come-back’ concert in France or Belgium. In her defense, at least some of these foreign concert halls had been booked prior to her knowing of the French cancellations. In any event, the ‘unplugged best of’ set list adopted for these countries at least partly out of necessity would not have been acceptable to a paying French audience, who presumably would have wanted newer songs (like from ‘Le Secret’). Lara tried, to some extent, to placate French and Belgian fans: besides thanking them for their support and prayers while she was recovering, she issued photos and comments to her FB audience, even while away at her international venues. Still, some felt it seemed somewhat ungracious not to repay the fans with any kind of (free) 'return' concert, preferably in one of the French regions with cancelled performances. September would have been the perfect time, before her foreign concert tour began. The French press, while happy to write about her recovery, and touting (possibly to Lara’s dismay) the foreign tour, often concluded with “nothing for us, however”.
Another possibility that would helped alleviate some of the fan complaints about never getting to see the (cancelled) ‘Le Secret’ shows, would have been to release the promised ‘Le Secret’ DVD. It was supposed to have been produced from all the fan-captured videos she had asked to be sent to her. The fans responded with more than 20GB of video plus even more from Russia. After acknowledging that effort, Lara never mentioned it again. It was rumored that the production company ‘Neo Prod France’ (apparently associated with Gerard Pullicino) - which was responsible for the ‘Le Secret’ promos in 2013 and those for the Paris Showcase in 2012 - had actually filmed three ‘Le Secret’ concerts, two of them being the shows in Namur and Liege. However, the rumor continued, Lara had not found them acceptable (shades of her problems with the Mademoiselle Zhivago movie). Whether that is true or not, perhaps Lara did not find the fans’ videos met her requirements. All in all, a tricky balancing act, how to expand her international audience without neglecting her long-term, passionate Francophone fans - one that she has not handled very well.
Lara was not completely absent from the Belgium/France media scene. For one thing, she participated in her usual charities, especially during the latter half of the year when she could be ‘out and about’. In Paris in late August, Lara spent a few days with Pascal Obispo and Michel Jonasz recording a duet for the album “Sidaction - Kiss & Love”, another release by the ‘Sidaction’ group, to raise funds for the battle against AIDS. The album, including Lara’s duet with Jonasz entitled "Parler d'amour” reached number five on the French charts. As early as March, an announcement was made about Lara’s participation as ‘ambassador’ for the Belgian charity “L’Enfant des Etoiles”, which raises money to help children in difficulty. Their musical fund-raising project for this year, entitled ‘MAIRE’, concerned ‘the conquistadors’ in the Caribbean shortly after the time of Christopher Columbus, and Lara was present for the inaugural press conference in early September. She donated her gold record from ‘Le Secret’ to the ‘Télévie’ telethon in April (on RTL-TV), this being an organization that mobilizes treatments for children who are suffering from cancer in Belgium and Luxembourg. Lara also attended the fifth anniversary of the ‘Little Dreams’ foundation at the end of November in Brussels, where she performed at their dinner. The organization run by Phil and Orianne Collins “helps children fulfill the dreams of young talents in music, art and sports”. She is the patron of the Frimousses [Doll] creation enterprise for UNICEF, which auctions off dolls specially created to help children in need. Lara continued her association with the ‘Papillon foundation’, “AMTM”, which helps children in Nepal, and was present for the launching of their new project ‘Cocon’ (Cocoon), building housing for children in difficult situations. And Lara did a wonderful duet with Joel Legendre of ‘Douces nuits de Noel’ (‘Silent Nights of Christmas’ an adaptation of ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’) which appeared this fall on the album “Noël”; this was to benefit the operation “Enfant Soleil”, which ”raises funds to support the development of quality pediatric care and contribute to projects of social intervention for all children in Quebec”. In recent radio interviews, Lara has stated that, “helping young people in need, seeing their faces light up, provides the greatest joy one can have as a human being”. Beautifully said!
Lara also did the ‘ice bucket’ challenge to raise money for the ALS Association and those affected by that disease. She in turn nominated Mustafa Ceceli, Maurane, and Gerard Pullicino, all of whom subsequently participated as well.
In a non-charity related activity, Lara was part of an ensemble album celebrating the 30 year anniversary of the program "Les enfants du Top 50" (The Children of the top 50). The artists got to choose which songs they would sing, and Lara sang an amazing version of “Une femme avec une femme” as a solo, while also inviting Yoann Freget to accompany her on “On se retrouvera”. This album also sold well, closing in on 100,000 copies, and Lara’s contributions got particularly good reviews. And to correct any impression that Lara is no longer relevant in Francophone countries, she won the ‘Legends of French song’ contest run by ‘buzz-land’.
Not only did Lara sing exceptionally well this year when she was able, she also looked wonderful. She was included on the TV5 Monde show "à la vie, à la mode" [“A Life in Fashion”] and was interviewed about her outfit at the New Wave festival in Latvia. She was featured on the website of Jean Paul Gauttier who produced outfits for her; she also proclaimed her interest in the products of the store ‘Dolce & Gabbana’. Lara has historically seemed somewhat disinterested when it comes to clothing (epitomized by her attire at some of her concerts in Francophone countries), and she noted in a Turkish Cosmopolitan article that she doesn’t like shopping for clothes (although she does “love designer creations”). Yet following on the necessity to present the expected appearance when performing in Russia, she has (often) upgraded this aspect of her shows as well.
The year 2014 was a difficult one for Lara’s fan sites, given the lack of activity for the first six months. A number closed, among them being “Pure-Lara”; “L’Ange-sublime-par-Claire-Evelyne-Daugé”; “Le Secret de Lara Fabian”; and “Lara Fabian 9” – they will be sorely missed. Others, while still technically alive, showed little activity. Those include LFIAG; the Lara Fabian Russian Forum; LF Tout Lara Fabian; and Lara Fabian II. On the other hand, we have been blessed by the appearance of a number of new, exciting FB sites, including Lara Fabian Voice of Passion USA; Lara Fabian et Emmanuel Moire LE duo; Lara Fabian Mexico; Lara Fabian UK; Entre nous et Lara; Lara Fabian Türkiye (which at over 10,000 ‘likes’ has the highest number for any ‘country’ fan-site); Fans de Lara Fabian Montreal; and most recently, Opération Fan Club Lara Fabian. Good luck to them all this coming year (and forgive me if I’ve overlooked anyone else new - please take the opportunity to respond in this thread). Note that a number of the new sites are not in French, indicative of Lara’s international push. On this site, in order to maintain interest (readers, as well as mine!
), personal choices were made of the ‘best’ live Lara videos for each of her songs; the complete list of some 120 different titles is included in the thread of September 20th (whose links still seems to be, by and large, operative, and the choices saved on the ‘Box’ links are still active).
Although the first half of 2014 was filled with what must have been heart-breaking worry for Lara, she used the time wisely and her hearing improved. When asked about her illness, after the worst had passed, Lara said, “"When you're a singer and you say that you are almost deafened by 70 percent here ... It's really scary. But I just try to look for positive things. I thought so – what is life trying to tell me? What do I need to change, what did I do wrong? My grandmother used to say that life does not ever burden us with what we cannot endure. These are the laws of the world. In what I had to face, I tried to look brave. And what happened is that I am almost fully recovered. Figuratively speaking, I'm still missing some of the broken string, hearing decreased by 15-20 percent.. But it is much better than a year ago. Most importantly, I can still sing…”. In another interview, Lara claimed that what helped her through was an active ‘forgiveness’ of the responsible party. She said, “The forecasts were pessimistic that threatened hearing loss, and we were forced to suspend my tour, to avoid complications. Then, leaving the office of the professor/doctor, I looked up and said, ‘Look, it's just a mistake that guy, he is terribly upset. It was not written in your book, so give me a couple of months, I can handle.’ Whether I was able to deal with him, or whether I was treated by very good doctors in Paris and Brussels, supported by my family, or all together - thank you from my heart to all for your understanding, patience and kindness!”
Ten years ago, in 2004, Lara also suffered from worrisome health-problems, and subsequently she said that what got her through was the realization that she had to change her attitude about her ‘problems’, become more positive – and this, along with forgiveness, apparently also helped her through the current trouble. In both cases, she had to heal psychologically as well as physically – a message for us all
.
On the other side we see a renewed singer, somewhat wounded but unbowed, with an ambitious agenda for 2015. On the docket are (potentially) a number of albums. ‘Odacity’ has promised a new ‘Best of’ to be released in Turkey, and the Lara Fabian Türkiye fan site has said they will make it available for purchase internationally. Lara has promised her Francophone fans a new French album (apparently with Mathieu Daquin as arranger); she says it will be “more in the line of her best-selling albums of the past”, is basically already finished, and is currently scheduled for next fall. At least those fans have that to look forward to! Lara has also mentioned during the year a new English album, apparently being done with John Metcalfe, for approximately the same time frame. Then there is the possibility of 'Mademoiselle Zhivago II' with Krutoi primarily for the Russian/Eastern European market. There will be a ‘Best of’ DVD recorded in Prague next June, the new international tour even including America for the first half of the year, and, who knows, perhaps even a new French tour next fall to coincide with the new album.
We will see how much of this actually comes true – as noted at the end of last year’s ‘Year in Review’, a lot depends on Lara’s health. Lara indicated that her hearing issue will be with her for the rest of her life, and the ailment is known to flare up if not handled with care. But at this point, things appear to be looking up. Here’s hoping for an even better 2015 for Lara (and for us, as well!).
David
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSnn9hJjySg
As usual for this show, lip-synched but beautiful.
In addition, she wished (Russian) people a happy New Year on the Song of the Year promo (also thanks to Lara Fabian Mexico) at:
www.facebook.com/video.php?v=775862705801125&set=vb.556364357750962
We will take that as her Happy New Year to us, as well!
And this follows her wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone on her FB site:
“Joyeux Noël à tous ! Merry Christmas everyone !”
It is appropriate that Lara once again begins the New Year on TV in a ‘foreign’ country, as the first six months of the year will be largely associated with her international excursions. In that regard, the Lara Fabian Web FB site noted that there is a small article about Lara and her ‘Greatest Hits 2015’ tour in Atlantic City. It can be seen at:
www.facebook.com/246805652001644/photos/a.247913198557556.83420.246805652001644/992487227433479/
Note the name change for the tour – is not called the ‘Best of’ tour anymore. But although it contains many of Lara’s ‘greatest hits’ or ‘best of’, it also contains a number of songs that wouldn’t really qualify in that regard, but are there for diversity or topicality. Nevertheless, it is a nice mix…
The Lara Fabian – PHQ site created a poster for the concerts so far, available at:
www.facebook.com/353946178085395/photos/a.353954938084519.1073741828.353946178085395/594855040661173/
Some fans have indicated that they have been told the show in Tel Aviv has been changed to February 28th, although it is still officially given on Lara’s site as the 21st. Perhaps this delay was due to her having to be in Italy from the 10th to the 14th for the San Remo festival. The change has still not been officially confirmed by Lara’s people. A small article on Lara in ‘TLV People” still lists it as the 21st.
www.facebook.com/246805652001644/photos/a.247913198557556.83420.246805652001644/991162057565996
As for Lara’s upcoming show in Brooklyn on January 31st, for which most of the seats have been sold, its title is now called “"A Night with composer Igor Krutoy". Lara is listed as a ‘special guest’, though we don’t know whether that means a set closer to the 44 minutes as in two of the previous Krutoi ‘galas’, or 10 minutes as in the TV broadcast version.
Lara’s influence in Russia is continuing to grow, and an indication is that three of the couples’ presentations for the 2015 Russian Nationals ice skating exhibition have used Lara’s songs/recordings (thanks to the Lara Fabian –PHQ site for the links). The videos, first with ‘Je t’aime’, then ‘Adagio’ and finally with ‘I Guess I Loved You’ can be seen at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uASrAXHNQ10
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHy3U9ShMyk
and
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvQFAlY5-K0
Continuing with the Russian flavor of this update, ‘Irinia Popova’ on the ‘Lara Fabian Connecting People’ site produced a video of the important events in Lara’s life for 2014. It is proceeding in parts. The ‘early part of the year’ can be seen at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2jfrMezNO4
while the summer is at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWU_pk-Q-JA
‘Later in the year’ will presumably be coming up shortly.
And in that spirit, below is our Year in Review 2014 for Lara. Happy New Year 2015 to Lara and to all of you!
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2014: A Year of Seclusion, Inactivity and Healing, Followed by a More International Focus
The year 2014 will go down for Lara as her most challenging in a decade, although the damage that precipitated it actually occurred the year before. In May, 2013, a stage technician had inadvertently sent a high frequency sound through Lara’s earphones during a rehearsal, damaging the hearing in her left ear. While Lara was literally ‘knocked off’ her perch by the event, and went to the hospital, the true extent of the damage ("Acoustic Shock Disorder") was not apparent until the fall of 2013, when she returned to the concert stage. Her hearing progressively deteriorated until, we have since learned, it had been reduced to 20% (not clear whether this refers to her hearing in total, or primarily to her left ear). She kept her concert tour alive by cancelling specific events, allowing for some recuperation, and hence was able to successfully negotiate concerts in New York at the end of 2013, and in Quebec (including Montreal) and Toronto the first two weeks of 2014 (where her ‘older hits’ were appreciated far more than the new songs from ‘Le Secret’). By then it became apparent that this approach was not working, and she was in danger of complete deafness in that ear.
So on January 17, 2014, Lara announced in a video on her FB site that she was cancelling the rest of her tour of France, one that was supposed to have occupied most of the first half of the year. She said she was going to try to really get well by staying away from excessive noise and by taking medication. She felt that if she continued, she wouldn’t have been able to give 100%, and so she was obeying the doctor’s advice. She apologized to all those who had not gotten to see her because of this, and to her touring companions, who would now be out of work. In response, her fans offered many forms of support, from cards and emails to self-created videos.
This set in motion some six months of relative isolation, where Lara had to insulate herself from loud sounds, for part of the time could not go to restaurants or movies or even have her child talk to her at a normal volume. She repeatedly visited the local outpatient clinic to take high doses of steroids (and felt poorly afterwards). As would be natural, she worried about what her hearing and future would become, since listening through earphones was an integral part of the work she did. A time of having to patiently wait for recovery, and likely for soul searching as well…
There were a few signs of activity associated with Lara during this period. A new version of ‘La vie est la’ was released as a single, in what was probably a pre-planned attempt to push sales of ‘Le Secret’ to coincide with the now-cancelled tour (it also included the duet with Laura Pausini of Il canto-Je chante). It was picked up by some radio stations and provided the album with a brief spurt on the charts. Lara also left some messages on her FB site of thanks to the fans for their support. The ‘imaginary’ couples photos of Lara and Eva Longoria taken by Olivier Ciappa appeared in public in Paris, and later throughout the country. But she missed several charity events that she may well have attended otherwise.
Lara was aided by having knowledgeable doctors, and her spirits were lifted by tests that showed the process was working, and her hearing was gradually recovering. This eventually allowed her to venture outside into more public venues – during mid-winter she vacationed at a quiet summer resort on the Island of St. Malo; in March she was seen attending the new version of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ in Paris, and people spoke to her in shops and restaurants; in April she was spotted in Sicily, likely visiting family members and was at the ‘Make A Wish’ show in Brussels. Nevertheless, these were few and far between, and the first half of 2014 featured no public performances or even many media interactions. A time for healing…
But also a time for planning and a re-orientation. In the message announcing her tour cancellation, Lara said she felt frustrated that she would not be able to continue the promotion of ‘Le Secret’, an album in which she felt she bared her soul (and sang magnificently). The album sold just 57,000 copies in France, about 75,000 overall, despite having debuted at #1 in the French charts. This was even less than the critically-reviled ‘Toutes les femmes en moi’, which sold 77,000 in France alone (100,000 overall), or the second English album ‘A Wonderful Life’, released back in 2004 with absolutely no promotion, which had 82,000 sales in France (150,000 overall). Yes, album sales are declining for everyone, but ‘Le Secret’ was in the top 100 on the French charts for just 11 weeks, compared to 25 for TLFM. The lack of continued touring undoubtedly hurt “Le Secret’, although by the time of her cancellation it had been out for close to 9 months. Overall, it was the 92nd best selling album in France in 2013. There were rumors that the advance sales for a number of the venues on the cancelled tour were far from full, and a small (but vocal) portion of Lara’s audience was convinced that it was that, rather than health issues, that caused the cancellation. [These don’t have to be unrelated – why risk one’s health for sparse audiences?]. It was probably becoming clear to Lara that she could no longer survive professionally depending primarily on her Francophone fans, regardless of how passionate her ‘angels’ were.
Lara had often referred to herself as a ‘citizen of the world’, and had given concerts in many countries, but following her days in Quebec in the ‘90s, she had generally retreated back to France and Belgium after any international sojourn, which was usually of short duration. The one exception that had been growing in recent years were her tours of Russia; and even before her injury, she had initiated tours of Eastern Europe and western Asia on a somewhat more regular basis. And her concerts in New York and Toronto were the first ever. But she had avoided Western Europe, in particular Germany and Italy, even though they were ‘right in her backyard’. However, in the midst of her ‘retreat’, venues in Germany were still selling tickets for concerts that were planned for the autumn, and in April, a more extensive fall tour became apparent, with stops also in Lithuania (Kaunas), the Czech Republic (Prague), Romania (Bucharest), Bulgaria (Sofia) and Finland (Helsinki and Turku). Apparently Lara felt she would be sufficiently recovered to perform by then, and it would be 'foreign' countries that would witness her return.
By the summer, Lara was beginning to rev back into action. For many years she had attended the “New Wave Festival’ in Latvia, run by Igor Krutoi, and Lara agreed to be present this year as well. Yet even prior to that, in early July, she performed at a private concert in Moscow. It turned out to be a good way to test her capacity, featuring minimal musician support and thus controlled sound levels. News also surfaced that the coming fall concerts would be acoustic in nature, “Lara Fabian-unplugged” as they were called. In an interview some time later, Lara acknowledged that this was done at least in part to protect her ears (although in practice, they were not that much different from her usual performances).
Lara’s appearance at the New Wave Festival in late July did mark her return to action before the public, though because the songs were probably done with lip-synching, that would not have required her to really sing under pressure. Nevertheless, as it became apparent she was sufficiently on the road to recovery that her career had, in effect, ‘resumed’, public attention shifted back to that career (as did these News Updates). Lara ‘performed’ two news songs, “Furious” and “Running”, both with music written by Igor Krutoi, and that led to further speculation that “Mademoiselle Zhivago II”, their next album together would soon be available - we’ve already heard two other new songs that may be from it, ‘Angel Fly Away’ and “Yin and Yang’. [That new album speculation still exists, although we’ve not seen any further evidence of such a release]. Instead, her recording career ramped up into full activity with the release in August of the duet of “Make Me Yours Tonight’, sung with Mustafa Ceceli from Turkey. The single, in two versions and accompanied by a video, became a big hit in that country, another new international venue for Lara, and the title has since become part of her recent repertoire. Lara herself joined Ceceli in concert in mid-August, and this time sang live before the public. Lara’s ‘Turkish’ adventure was clearly one of the highlights of her year.
Her acoustic concert tour opened in early October with four shows in Germany. It was a ‘best of’ set list containing (for the first time) slightly more English songs than French (with one each in Italian and Spanish, and occasionally one in Russia). She spoke to the audience primarily in English. It continued through the aforementioned various countries for the rest of the month, and after a break, added shows in Baku, Azerbaijan in November, and Chisinau, Moldova in December. Two highlights from the show in Baku included her singing a traditional folk song ‘Sari Gelin’ in the Azeri language, and also doing a breathtakingly cute impromptu duet with an eight year old girl who asked to come up on the stage. Throughout all the shows Lara was in great voice, as good as we’ve heard her in years. Her only obvious health issue was a cold that affected her performances in Romania and Bulgaria, but Lara soldiered through. She indicated that now she was restricted to a 90 minute show, without electric instrumentation, and that after each concert had to be in a quiet place and receive medication. But her hearing was up to 80% (presumably in her left ear) and she could perform! The shows were characterized by full audiences providing amazing support, and lavish praise in the press and by her fans; she gave numerous interviews and was the subject of news programs and videos. She could have no doubt that she was being fully appreciated.
Lara also ‘returned’ to her Russian audience in November and December, with performances at three Gala presentations honoring Igor Krutoi’s 60th birthday. In two of them her set list of eight songs lasted some 45 minutes, and on the other show, her three songs were ultimately seen by the broader Russian public as the event was recorded and televised on consecutive weekends. Her interaction with Krutoi deepened further for she recorded a Russian version of ‘Je t’aime encore’ entitled ‘Lubov ustavshikh lebedey’ (English translation: ‘Love of Tired Swans”) with new, Russian lyrics written by the poet Mikhail Gutseriev. It was released as a single, there appeared to be a video, and Lara’s performance of it was seen on TV.
Helping her on these international ventures, and perhaps pushing her as well, was a new manager (Pierre Sarazin) and a new production company (PRG EML), while a new record company (Odacity) provided distribution in certain countries (e.g., Turkey). Sarazin gave the following statement, “I’ve installed a brand new team around Lara. My goal is to keep this team, grow together and give a stable environment to Lara, both technically and humanly. Before each show I want everything to be perfect so that Lara doesn’t have to care about anything [other] than the songs. Later, when Lara will be back on bigger stages and other areas, I know I will be able to count on PRG as a worldwide group. I can definitely use the PRG network and rely on the support of other subsidiaries in France, USA, Brazil and so on.“
As implied by the following statement, Lara’s international appearances are not being confined to the fall of 2014. PRG EML Productions issued a press release, saying,“We are delighted to accompany Belgian-Canadian singer Lara Fabian on an intimate tour that will take her through Germany, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Slovakia and the USA”. In addition to the shows already performed, a new tour covering many of these countries (plus Israel) is set for the late winter and spring of 2015, with concerts possibly still being added. It will again be a ‘Best of’ tour – in this case called ‘Greatest Hits’ - and a DVD of one of the concerts will be filmed in the Czech Republic next June. And while this year Lara finally got around to the ‘next door’ country of Germany, next February she will be in San Remo, Italy as the first ‘foreign’ entrant in their major singing competition, with a new Italian song (‘Voce’). The winner gets to represent Italy in the 2015 Eurovision contest. If she were to win, an “Italian” adventure might become the lead story next year. As Lara said, sometimes you have to take a long path to get back home (she has often said she considers herself, basically, Italian).
This new tour will also have for the first time a North American flavor. It will include, in an abbreviated form, four cities in the U.S. and three more in Canada. Her U.S. venues seem weighted towards locales reachable by a Russian-speaking population, perhaps as a result of her Carnegie Hall experience last year where the hall was sold out largely due to the Russian-speaking contingent. In fact, her upcoming New York appearance will be part of (yet another) gala celebration for Krutoi. In Canada, in addition to Montreal and Toronto, she will for the first time sing on the far west coast near Vancouver; assuming a similar ‘Best of’ set list to what we saw this fall, it will also be her first venture singing so many songs in English in English-speaking Canada. It has been suggested the tour will cover South American venues as well (if so, most likely Brazil), although nothing has yet been announced. Perhaps coincidentally, but nevertheless importantly, for the first time all of Lara’s albums (both French and English) have appeared on the international music sites around the world, including amazon.com and iTunes.
As one might expect, this concentration on the world at large (and her speaking primarily in English on international concert stages and to the international media) did not go over well with some of Lara’s Francophone fans. They were irritated that she did not choose to make up the concerts that had been cancelled from the first half of the year, or even provide a single ‘come-back’ concert in France or Belgium. In her defense, at least some of these foreign concert halls had been booked prior to her knowing of the French cancellations. In any event, the ‘unplugged best of’ set list adopted for these countries at least partly out of necessity would not have been acceptable to a paying French audience, who presumably would have wanted newer songs (like from ‘Le Secret’). Lara tried, to some extent, to placate French and Belgian fans: besides thanking them for their support and prayers while she was recovering, she issued photos and comments to her FB audience, even while away at her international venues. Still, some felt it seemed somewhat ungracious not to repay the fans with any kind of (free) 'return' concert, preferably in one of the French regions with cancelled performances. September would have been the perfect time, before her foreign concert tour began. The French press, while happy to write about her recovery, and touting (possibly to Lara’s dismay) the foreign tour, often concluded with “nothing for us, however”.
Another possibility that would helped alleviate some of the fan complaints about never getting to see the (cancelled) ‘Le Secret’ shows, would have been to release the promised ‘Le Secret’ DVD. It was supposed to have been produced from all the fan-captured videos she had asked to be sent to her. The fans responded with more than 20GB of video plus even more from Russia. After acknowledging that effort, Lara never mentioned it again. It was rumored that the production company ‘Neo Prod France’ (apparently associated with Gerard Pullicino) - which was responsible for the ‘Le Secret’ promos in 2013 and those for the Paris Showcase in 2012 - had actually filmed three ‘Le Secret’ concerts, two of them being the shows in Namur and Liege. However, the rumor continued, Lara had not found them acceptable (shades of her problems with the Mademoiselle Zhivago movie). Whether that is true or not, perhaps Lara did not find the fans’ videos met her requirements. All in all, a tricky balancing act, how to expand her international audience without neglecting her long-term, passionate Francophone fans - one that she has not handled very well.
Lara was not completely absent from the Belgium/France media scene. For one thing, she participated in her usual charities, especially during the latter half of the year when she could be ‘out and about’. In Paris in late August, Lara spent a few days with Pascal Obispo and Michel Jonasz recording a duet for the album “Sidaction - Kiss & Love”, another release by the ‘Sidaction’ group, to raise funds for the battle against AIDS. The album, including Lara’s duet with Jonasz entitled "Parler d'amour” reached number five on the French charts. As early as March, an announcement was made about Lara’s participation as ‘ambassador’ for the Belgian charity “L’Enfant des Etoiles”, which raises money to help children in difficulty. Their musical fund-raising project for this year, entitled ‘MAIRE’, concerned ‘the conquistadors’ in the Caribbean shortly after the time of Christopher Columbus, and Lara was present for the inaugural press conference in early September. She donated her gold record from ‘Le Secret’ to the ‘Télévie’ telethon in April (on RTL-TV), this being an organization that mobilizes treatments for children who are suffering from cancer in Belgium and Luxembourg. Lara also attended the fifth anniversary of the ‘Little Dreams’ foundation at the end of November in Brussels, where she performed at their dinner. The organization run by Phil and Orianne Collins “helps children fulfill the dreams of young talents in music, art and sports”. She is the patron of the Frimousses [Doll] creation enterprise for UNICEF, which auctions off dolls specially created to help children in need. Lara continued her association with the ‘Papillon foundation’, “AMTM”, which helps children in Nepal, and was present for the launching of their new project ‘Cocon’ (Cocoon), building housing for children in difficult situations. And Lara did a wonderful duet with Joel Legendre of ‘Douces nuits de Noel’ (‘Silent Nights of Christmas’ an adaptation of ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’) which appeared this fall on the album “Noël”; this was to benefit the operation “Enfant Soleil”, which ”raises funds to support the development of quality pediatric care and contribute to projects of social intervention for all children in Quebec”. In recent radio interviews, Lara has stated that, “helping young people in need, seeing their faces light up, provides the greatest joy one can have as a human being”. Beautifully said!
Lara also did the ‘ice bucket’ challenge to raise money for the ALS Association and those affected by that disease. She in turn nominated Mustafa Ceceli, Maurane, and Gerard Pullicino, all of whom subsequently participated as well.
In a non-charity related activity, Lara was part of an ensemble album celebrating the 30 year anniversary of the program "Les enfants du Top 50" (The Children of the top 50). The artists got to choose which songs they would sing, and Lara sang an amazing version of “Une femme avec une femme” as a solo, while also inviting Yoann Freget to accompany her on “On se retrouvera”. This album also sold well, closing in on 100,000 copies, and Lara’s contributions got particularly good reviews. And to correct any impression that Lara is no longer relevant in Francophone countries, she won the ‘Legends of French song’ contest run by ‘buzz-land’.
Not only did Lara sing exceptionally well this year when she was able, she also looked wonderful. She was included on the TV5 Monde show "à la vie, à la mode" [“A Life in Fashion”] and was interviewed about her outfit at the New Wave festival in Latvia. She was featured on the website of Jean Paul Gauttier who produced outfits for her; she also proclaimed her interest in the products of the store ‘Dolce & Gabbana’. Lara has historically seemed somewhat disinterested when it comes to clothing (epitomized by her attire at some of her concerts in Francophone countries), and she noted in a Turkish Cosmopolitan article that she doesn’t like shopping for clothes (although she does “love designer creations”). Yet following on the necessity to present the expected appearance when performing in Russia, she has (often) upgraded this aspect of her shows as well.
The year 2014 was a difficult one for Lara’s fan sites, given the lack of activity for the first six months. A number closed, among them being “Pure-Lara”; “L’Ange-sublime-par-Claire-Evelyne-Daugé”; “Le Secret de Lara Fabian”; and “Lara Fabian 9” – they will be sorely missed. Others, while still technically alive, showed little activity. Those include LFIAG; the Lara Fabian Russian Forum; LF Tout Lara Fabian; and Lara Fabian II. On the other hand, we have been blessed by the appearance of a number of new, exciting FB sites, including Lara Fabian Voice of Passion USA; Lara Fabian et Emmanuel Moire LE duo; Lara Fabian Mexico; Lara Fabian UK; Entre nous et Lara; Lara Fabian Türkiye (which at over 10,000 ‘likes’ has the highest number for any ‘country’ fan-site); Fans de Lara Fabian Montreal; and most recently, Opération Fan Club Lara Fabian. Good luck to them all this coming year (and forgive me if I’ve overlooked anyone else new - please take the opportunity to respond in this thread). Note that a number of the new sites are not in French, indicative of Lara’s international push. On this site, in order to maintain interest (readers, as well as mine!
), personal choices were made of the ‘best’ live Lara videos for each of her songs; the complete list of some 120 different titles is included in the thread of September 20th (whose links still seems to be, by and large, operative, and the choices saved on the ‘Box’ links are still active). Although the first half of 2014 was filled with what must have been heart-breaking worry for Lara, she used the time wisely and her hearing improved. When asked about her illness, after the worst had passed, Lara said, “"When you're a singer and you say that you are almost deafened by 70 percent here ... It's really scary. But I just try to look for positive things. I thought so – what is life trying to tell me? What do I need to change, what did I do wrong? My grandmother used to say that life does not ever burden us with what we cannot endure. These are the laws of the world. In what I had to face, I tried to look brave. And what happened is that I am almost fully recovered. Figuratively speaking, I'm still missing some of the broken string, hearing decreased by 15-20 percent.. But it is much better than a year ago. Most importantly, I can still sing…”. In another interview, Lara claimed that what helped her through was an active ‘forgiveness’ of the responsible party. She said, “The forecasts were pessimistic that threatened hearing loss, and we were forced to suspend my tour, to avoid complications. Then, leaving the office of the professor/doctor, I looked up and said, ‘Look, it's just a mistake that guy, he is terribly upset. It was not written in your book, so give me a couple of months, I can handle.’ Whether I was able to deal with him, or whether I was treated by very good doctors in Paris and Brussels, supported by my family, or all together - thank you from my heart to all for your understanding, patience and kindness!”
Ten years ago, in 2004, Lara also suffered from worrisome health-problems, and subsequently she said that what got her through was the realization that she had to change her attitude about her ‘problems’, become more positive – and this, along with forgiveness, apparently also helped her through the current trouble. In both cases, she had to heal psychologically as well as physically – a message for us all
. On the other side we see a renewed singer, somewhat wounded but unbowed, with an ambitious agenda for 2015. On the docket are (potentially) a number of albums. ‘Odacity’ has promised a new ‘Best of’ to be released in Turkey, and the Lara Fabian Türkiye fan site has said they will make it available for purchase internationally. Lara has promised her Francophone fans a new French album (apparently with Mathieu Daquin as arranger); she says it will be “more in the line of her best-selling albums of the past”, is basically already finished, and is currently scheduled for next fall. At least those fans have that to look forward to! Lara has also mentioned during the year a new English album, apparently being done with John Metcalfe, for approximately the same time frame. Then there is the possibility of 'Mademoiselle Zhivago II' with Krutoi primarily for the Russian/Eastern European market. There will be a ‘Best of’ DVD recorded in Prague next June, the new international tour even including America for the first half of the year, and, who knows, perhaps even a new French tour next fall to coincide with the new album.
We will see how much of this actually comes true – as noted at the end of last year’s ‘Year in Review’, a lot depends on Lara’s health. Lara indicated that her hearing issue will be with her for the rest of her life, and the ailment is known to flare up if not handled with care. But at this point, things appear to be looking up. Here’s hoping for an even better 2015 for Lara (and for us, as well!).
David
