Post by davidhr on Jan 20, 2015 8:44:13 GMT -5
Without anything current on her public calendar, Lara’s past and future activities in a variety of countries highlighted the news this past week, starting with Lara’s coming participation in the San Remo festival in February. A nice article about it appeared at (http://www.sanremo.rai.it/dl/portali/site/articolo/ContentItem-3a7338b6-ca40-49d6-9cf2-5abc49fb07e0.html?). It is a review of Lara’s career, basically information with which we’re all familiar. One novel component: towards the end it says (in translation), “In late February, after the participation in the Festival, she is expected to release a ‘Best Of Lara’ with her greatest hits including the song "Voce" (the new song composed by Lara Fabian, Maestro Fio Zanotti and Cristiano Cremonini that she will be singing in the San Remo competition). If this is the same ‘best of’ being released by ‘Odacity’, it would contradict both the month of that release (still scheduled for January, as far as we know), and also the expected audience (since it did not seem intended for the Italian public). ‘Odacity’ did indicate that the ‘best of’ would include previously unreleased material, but we took that to mean different versions of ‘Make Me Yours Tonight’. Of course things can change; perhaps Odacity can clarify this. More generally, obviously, one can’t take literally all that appears in print.
[BTW, there does appear to be a ‘more sped-up’ version of the ‘Al Gotur Beni’ video [mixed Turkish-English version of ‘Make Me Yours Tonight’], of two minutes and 57 seconds duration, available, for example, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=BERohtUXLPE
[rather than the original 3:33, www.youtube.com/watch?v=pToXFqpqqNQ].
In addition, at a San Remo press conference, Carlo Conti announced the different ‘covers’ that will be sung by the contestants during the third night of the San Remo competition. Lara will be performing “Sto Male”, which is an Italian version of ‘Je suis malade’. It was made popular by Ornella Vanoni, whose version can be found at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnI32ltCg4Y
A handsome advertising poster for Lara’s performance of it is available from the ‘Starpoint Corporation’ at:
www.facebook.com/StarpointCorporation/photos/a.227561750712005.59033.201915099943337/590247941110049/?
Wonder if Lara will drop the microphone to sing ‘a capella’ towards the end, as she usually does in French? Always a crowd pleaser!
You can still vote for Lara in an informal poll preceding the festival, at: musiconlineofficial.altervista.org/votazioni-cantanti-sanremo-2015/
As of December 14th, Lara was second (though the position shifts daily), but like everyone else, far behind the leader ‘Il Vovo’. In another poll, asking people who they would like to represent Italy in the 2015 Eurovision song contest (which the winner will do), Lara gets very few votes (http://musiconlineofficial.altervista.org/chi-vuoi-che-rappresenti-litalia-alleurovision-song-contest-2015/). Frankly, one imagines it will be difficult for Lara to win at San Remo; given that all the contestants are professional singers, it is at least partly a popularity contest before the Italian public, for whom Lara is not a familiar figure. But it is good for her to be seen by that audience, and given how ‘Italian’ she really is, embarrassingly long overdue.
The photos and song titles of all the contestants in the category ‘Campioni’ (Champions) can be seen at:
www.sanremo.rai.it/dl/portali/site/articolo/list/ContentSet-8b47eebb-c727-446d-bb0d-557615e50259.html
Still in the Italian mode, Mauro Plati Coruzzi had a twitter comment about Lara accompanied by a photo with her, at:
/photo/1
The comment (in translation) reads “very chic, adorable, truly beautiful…my emotions (in improvised French); that’s all”. According to Wikipedia Italy, “Maurizio ‘Mauro’ Coruzzi, better known by the stage name of his drag queen character ‘Platinette’, is a radio and television host, television personality and Italian singer.” [The release of this message and photo may imply that Lara is currently in Italy…].
Several of Lara’s Belgian charity activities got notice this past week, at least on the fan sites. A report on the ‘Papillion’ Foundation, for which Lara is the Godmother, which originally aired on RTL-TV on November 28, 2014, caught the attention of various fan sites. It is visible at:
www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1038459199504114
The highly laudatory report noted that Lara gave a concert to support the organization in September, 2011, and was present in November for the inauguration of the foundation’s program ‘Cocoon’, building houses for disadvantaged children. Of interest, it noted that Lara will give a new concert for the foundation after her world tour ends in April. Actually, the tour doesn’t really end in April, as there are several concerts already planned for June. We’ve also not heard anything about a rumored South American portion of the tour. Nevertheless, if and when a concert does take place for ‘Papillion’, it would seem to be Lara’s first public one in the Francophone countries since 2013.
You may remember that the broadcast "C'est du Belge" originally supposed to air on RTBF in Belgium, December 5th, was concerned with the Belgian branch of the ‘Little Dreams Foundation’ for which Lara has been the local sponsor. It ‘helps children live their dreams’. The show was postponed due to the death of the Belgian queen Fabiola. According to the Lara Fabian est ton autre site, it was supposed to finally be broadcast last Friday – but was not, for some unknown reason. No new date has been announced. However, ‘Paris Match’ had some photos from their dinner in November, at which Lara performed; they can be seen at:
www.facebook.com/166959643357708/photos/pcb.785520858168247/785520828168250/?type=1&theater
and the ‘Lara Fabian est ton autre’ site has many more photos, at:
www.facebook.com/166959643357708/photos/ms.c.eJw90NENAzEIA9CNKhMIhv0Xawvn~_8uTYysKK8vMsuB9LD~_sZBc9CNp5HesrWyEQafIdX8q5Vr9gTv~_dZVtrr87sm~;oVmx~_5Zi~;ice8etdf7ntB72sfeMmcfz15j~_5mv~;zm65bN9yJz79805uf6jEeuSe~;fwBf~;LSKQ~-.bps.a.786798684707131.1073741879.166959643357708/786811168039216/?type=1&theater
With respect to Lara’s upcoming American tour: a poster for Lara’s March 31st concert in Beverly Hills can be seen at:
www.facebook.com/246805652001644/photos/a.247913198557556.83420.246805652001644/1004105916271610/?
‘Martha Hix’ in a message to several sites noted that there is no publicity about Lara on the calendar of the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills. She also calculated, unofficially, that less than half the tickets had been sold so far. She makes a plea for Lara’s ‘people’ to take some action to boost sales. As for the other Northern American venues, my own estimate is that for Hollywood, Florida, a little more than one-half of some 3000 seats have been purchased; for Toronto, about 1/3 of the 1200 seats have been sold; and a little less than ½ sold of the 1000 seat theatre in Richmond, B.C. As for Atlantic City, the best seats have all been sold, but seats are available in the other sections (a trend that is generally true at all the venues).
Certainly, it would be a shame if the potential North American audience were to miss seeing her, and for her to feel she was (once again) unappreciated there. However, assuming Lara is not willing to spend time making the media rounds in these particular locales, it’s not really clear what can be done to convince an audience to go see a singer they’ve never heard of. One has to build an audience, through record releases, videos, TV show appearances, press interviews, etc. As Lara herself said, to be successful one has to “live there” (i.e., involve oneself in the media community to become known), “or have a big international hit song, that crossed the ocean”. Lara has done neither of those things, she just pops up from afar without any publicity. Her sold out concert at Carnegie Hall was in large part due to her continued appearances – in Russia! – that then drew in the Russian speaking audience. Similarly, there is a big push in the Russian speaking community for the coming Krutoi gala in Brooklyn, New York, where Lara is a special guest (e.g., www.ticketsny.com/en/events/2014-barclays-reserved/krutoi2). Perhaps word of mouth among whatever Russian community exists in all these locales is her best hope for filling the other upcoming US venues.
Ironically, the one place that some publicity effort has been made is the one that would seem to need it least, Montreal. Another item in that regard can be found on Twitter, at: . Perhaps Lara’s people are concentrating on locales in which they think it can possibly succeed.
Speaking of posters for this tour, the ‘Lara Fabian Voice of Passion USA’ site featured a beautiful one for the Hollywood, Florida concert of March 28th. Perhaps they should be in charge of Lara’s U.S. promotion!
The ‘Larafabianweb’ site celebrated its 10th anniversary this past week (https://www.facebook.com/246805652001644/photos/a.247913198557556.83420.246805652001644/1006538279361707/?) [this inlucdes the URL, i.e., obviously not all on facebook]. They issued the following e-card (http://dromadaire.seloger.com/dromacarte/view/?p=eyJ0eGlkIjoiUFAtMTQyMTI1MTI5MzkxOTUiLCJyX2VtYWlsIjoiZS1tYWlsQGxhcmFmYWJpYW53ZWIuY29tIn0%3D&utm_campaign=mail_destinataire&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sent_conf&cmp=PA0189), which reads (in translation):
-------------------------------------
Dear all,
This year, our site LaraFabianWeb turns 10.
"Aging is still the only way we could find to live long." Sainte Beuve
Thank you all for your loyalty.
A special thank you to you Lara for all the musical happiness that you offer us for so many years. This site would not exist without you!
And finally, more than ever, we are united today because we are all Charlie.
Carpe Diem
LaraFabianWeb Team
------------------------------------
In the same vein, it was noted in December that the Lara Fabian Brazil site celebrated its 5th anniversary (http://www.larafabianbrasil.com.br/2014/12/5-anos-de-lara-fabian-brasil.html). And on a personal note, these News Updates are beginning their tenth year (again, obviously not all on FB; a complete archive of them is available at lfiag.yuku.com/forums/5/laraDOMus?page=1#.VL3WyYrF_es).
Still concerning websites: the ‘Lara Fabian Operation Fan Club’ site noted an article in ‘urban-fusions’ about the most popular female Francophone singers, as judged by their ‘likes’ in social media, combining Facebook and Twitter (http://www.urban-fusions.com/2015/01/top-25-des-chanteuses-francophones-les-plus-populaires-sur-les-reseaux-sociaux.html). Lara with 0.87 million fans ranks 14th, up three places from 17th last year. As they note, “What is certain is that the younger you are the better the fans, it's a generational thing”. It also helps if the artist is highly active in participating on the site, something for which Lara gets mixed grades. Perhaps it’s not only the youth of the fans, but the youth and enthusiasm of the performer for this type of interaction.
And one last website item: we’ll close with a new feature, the ‘most interesting’ photo of the week (as opposed to simply the most beautiful) from the various Lara fan sites. Again clearly a personal choice – and people should feel free to submit their own candidates. The one that struck me this week was from the ‘Lara Fabian Mexico’ site, at:
www.facebook.com/LaraFabianfromMexico/photos/a.556367684417296.1073741826.556364357750962/785779878142741/
There were many other worthy candidates!
Presumably at some point in the next week Lara will travel to the U.S. to join the Russian contingent for the Krutoi gala to be held in 11 days in Brooklyn, NYC. Until then nothing is on her public calendar.
David
[BTW, there does appear to be a ‘more sped-up’ version of the ‘Al Gotur Beni’ video [mixed Turkish-English version of ‘Make Me Yours Tonight’], of two minutes and 57 seconds duration, available, for example, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=BERohtUXLPE
[rather than the original 3:33, www.youtube.com/watch?v=pToXFqpqqNQ].
In addition, at a San Remo press conference, Carlo Conti announced the different ‘covers’ that will be sung by the contestants during the third night of the San Remo competition. Lara will be performing “Sto Male”, which is an Italian version of ‘Je suis malade’. It was made popular by Ornella Vanoni, whose version can be found at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnI32ltCg4Y
A handsome advertising poster for Lara’s performance of it is available from the ‘Starpoint Corporation’ at:
www.facebook.com/StarpointCorporation/photos/a.227561750712005.59033.201915099943337/590247941110049/?
Wonder if Lara will drop the microphone to sing ‘a capella’ towards the end, as she usually does in French? Always a crowd pleaser!
You can still vote for Lara in an informal poll preceding the festival, at: musiconlineofficial.altervista.org/votazioni-cantanti-sanremo-2015/
As of December 14th, Lara was second (though the position shifts daily), but like everyone else, far behind the leader ‘Il Vovo’. In another poll, asking people who they would like to represent Italy in the 2015 Eurovision song contest (which the winner will do), Lara gets very few votes (http://musiconlineofficial.altervista.org/chi-vuoi-che-rappresenti-litalia-alleurovision-song-contest-2015/). Frankly, one imagines it will be difficult for Lara to win at San Remo; given that all the contestants are professional singers, it is at least partly a popularity contest before the Italian public, for whom Lara is not a familiar figure. But it is good for her to be seen by that audience, and given how ‘Italian’ she really is, embarrassingly long overdue.
The photos and song titles of all the contestants in the category ‘Campioni’ (Champions) can be seen at:
www.sanremo.rai.it/dl/portali/site/articolo/list/ContentSet-8b47eebb-c727-446d-bb0d-557615e50259.html
Still in the Italian mode, Mauro Plati Coruzzi had a twitter comment about Lara accompanied by a photo with her, at:
/photo/1
The comment (in translation) reads “very chic, adorable, truly beautiful…my emotions (in improvised French); that’s all”. According to Wikipedia Italy, “Maurizio ‘Mauro’ Coruzzi, better known by the stage name of his drag queen character ‘Platinette’, is a radio and television host, television personality and Italian singer.” [The release of this message and photo may imply that Lara is currently in Italy…].
Several of Lara’s Belgian charity activities got notice this past week, at least on the fan sites. A report on the ‘Papillion’ Foundation, for which Lara is the Godmother, which originally aired on RTL-TV on November 28, 2014, caught the attention of various fan sites. It is visible at:
www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1038459199504114
The highly laudatory report noted that Lara gave a concert to support the organization in September, 2011, and was present in November for the inauguration of the foundation’s program ‘Cocoon’, building houses for disadvantaged children. Of interest, it noted that Lara will give a new concert for the foundation after her world tour ends in April. Actually, the tour doesn’t really end in April, as there are several concerts already planned for June. We’ve also not heard anything about a rumored South American portion of the tour. Nevertheless, if and when a concert does take place for ‘Papillion’, it would seem to be Lara’s first public one in the Francophone countries since 2013.
You may remember that the broadcast "C'est du Belge" originally supposed to air on RTBF in Belgium, December 5th, was concerned with the Belgian branch of the ‘Little Dreams Foundation’ for which Lara has been the local sponsor. It ‘helps children live their dreams’. The show was postponed due to the death of the Belgian queen Fabiola. According to the Lara Fabian est ton autre site, it was supposed to finally be broadcast last Friday – but was not, for some unknown reason. No new date has been announced. However, ‘Paris Match’ had some photos from their dinner in November, at which Lara performed; they can be seen at:
www.facebook.com/166959643357708/photos/pcb.785520858168247/785520828168250/?type=1&theater
and the ‘Lara Fabian est ton autre’ site has many more photos, at:
www.facebook.com/166959643357708/photos/ms.c.eJw90NENAzEIA9CNKhMIhv0Xawvn~_8uTYysKK8vMsuB9LD~_sZBc9CNp5HesrWyEQafIdX8q5Vr9gTv~_dZVtrr87sm~;oVmx~_5Zi~;ice8etdf7ntB72sfeMmcfz15j~_5mv~;zm65bN9yJz79805uf6jEeuSe~;fwBf~;LSKQ~-.bps.a.786798684707131.1073741879.166959643357708/786811168039216/?type=1&theater
With respect to Lara’s upcoming American tour: a poster for Lara’s March 31st concert in Beverly Hills can be seen at:
www.facebook.com/246805652001644/photos/a.247913198557556.83420.246805652001644/1004105916271610/?
‘Martha Hix’ in a message to several sites noted that there is no publicity about Lara on the calendar of the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills. She also calculated, unofficially, that less than half the tickets had been sold so far. She makes a plea for Lara’s ‘people’ to take some action to boost sales. As for the other Northern American venues, my own estimate is that for Hollywood, Florida, a little more than one-half of some 3000 seats have been purchased; for Toronto, about 1/3 of the 1200 seats have been sold; and a little less than ½ sold of the 1000 seat theatre in Richmond, B.C. As for Atlantic City, the best seats have all been sold, but seats are available in the other sections (a trend that is generally true at all the venues).
Certainly, it would be a shame if the potential North American audience were to miss seeing her, and for her to feel she was (once again) unappreciated there. However, assuming Lara is not willing to spend time making the media rounds in these particular locales, it’s not really clear what can be done to convince an audience to go see a singer they’ve never heard of. One has to build an audience, through record releases, videos, TV show appearances, press interviews, etc. As Lara herself said, to be successful one has to “live there” (i.e., involve oneself in the media community to become known), “or have a big international hit song, that crossed the ocean”. Lara has done neither of those things, she just pops up from afar without any publicity. Her sold out concert at Carnegie Hall was in large part due to her continued appearances – in Russia! – that then drew in the Russian speaking audience. Similarly, there is a big push in the Russian speaking community for the coming Krutoi gala in Brooklyn, New York, where Lara is a special guest (e.g., www.ticketsny.com/en/events/2014-barclays-reserved/krutoi2). Perhaps word of mouth among whatever Russian community exists in all these locales is her best hope for filling the other upcoming US venues.
Ironically, the one place that some publicity effort has been made is the one that would seem to need it least, Montreal. Another item in that regard can be found on Twitter, at: . Perhaps Lara’s people are concentrating on locales in which they think it can possibly succeed.
Speaking of posters for this tour, the ‘Lara Fabian Voice of Passion USA’ site featured a beautiful one for the Hollywood, Florida concert of March 28th. Perhaps they should be in charge of Lara’s U.S. promotion!
The ‘Larafabianweb’ site celebrated its 10th anniversary this past week (https://www.facebook.com/246805652001644/photos/a.247913198557556.83420.246805652001644/1006538279361707/?) [this inlucdes the URL, i.e., obviously not all on facebook]. They issued the following e-card (http://dromadaire.seloger.com/dromacarte/view/?p=eyJ0eGlkIjoiUFAtMTQyMTI1MTI5MzkxOTUiLCJyX2VtYWlsIjoiZS1tYWlsQGxhcmFmYWJpYW53ZWIuY29tIn0%3D&utm_campaign=mail_destinataire&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sent_conf&cmp=PA0189), which reads (in translation):
-------------------------------------
Dear all,
This year, our site LaraFabianWeb turns 10.
"Aging is still the only way we could find to live long." Sainte Beuve
Thank you all for your loyalty.
A special thank you to you Lara for all the musical happiness that you offer us for so many years. This site would not exist without you!
And finally, more than ever, we are united today because we are all Charlie.
Carpe Diem
LaraFabianWeb Team
------------------------------------
In the same vein, it was noted in December that the Lara Fabian Brazil site celebrated its 5th anniversary (http://www.larafabianbrasil.com.br/2014/12/5-anos-de-lara-fabian-brasil.html). And on a personal note, these News Updates are beginning their tenth year (again, obviously not all on FB; a complete archive of them is available at lfiag.yuku.com/forums/5/laraDOMus?page=1#.VL3WyYrF_es).
Still concerning websites: the ‘Lara Fabian Operation Fan Club’ site noted an article in ‘urban-fusions’ about the most popular female Francophone singers, as judged by their ‘likes’ in social media, combining Facebook and Twitter (http://www.urban-fusions.com/2015/01/top-25-des-chanteuses-francophones-les-plus-populaires-sur-les-reseaux-sociaux.html). Lara with 0.87 million fans ranks 14th, up three places from 17th last year. As they note, “What is certain is that the younger you are the better the fans, it's a generational thing”. It also helps if the artist is highly active in participating on the site, something for which Lara gets mixed grades. Perhaps it’s not only the youth of the fans, but the youth and enthusiasm of the performer for this type of interaction.
And one last website item: we’ll close with a new feature, the ‘most interesting’ photo of the week (as opposed to simply the most beautiful) from the various Lara fan sites. Again clearly a personal choice – and people should feel free to submit their own candidates. The one that struck me this week was from the ‘Lara Fabian Mexico’ site, at:
www.facebook.com/LaraFabianfromMexico/photos/a.556367684417296.1073741826.556364357750962/785779878142741/
There were many other worthy candidates!
Presumably at some point in the next week Lara will travel to the U.S. to join the Russian contingent for the Krutoi gala to be held in 11 days in Brooklyn, NYC. Until then nothing is on her public calendar.
David
