Post by davidhr on Jan 11, 2022 8:34:25 GMT -5
It was the best of times and the worst of times the first week of this new year for Lara, on returning home to Quebec from Belgium. It started out in poor fashion, as evidenced by her message on her FB site this past Saturday:
-------------------------------
“Hello to all,
I was happy to get on the stage of Gala Celebration 2022 and sing for you this Sunday, but it won't happen. Know I'm doing great, but I've been put in preventive isolation this week. This situation is out of my control I will be watching this big tv show just like you from my home. My friend and stage performer Joël Legendre had prepared a wonderful number that I hope to present you in the future.
So our reunion is in a little over a week at Star Academy, I am SO excited!
I love you guys
Lara”
--------------------------------
It was always a possibility when traveling, if that is when the ‘need for isolation’ arose; hopefully her ‘feeling great’ is the case, and there are no longer term implications.
And then on Sunday (while still in isolation), it was Lara’s 52nd birthday – hopefully she felt well enough and was in a position to celebrate it. Various congratulations were provided on professional and fan sites, for example:
From the Star Academie/TVA, with the caption, “Join us in wishing our favorite director, Lara Fabian, a happy birthday! 🥳 Tag her in the comments so she gets a wave of love tonight.”
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/photos/a.361601375242829/782635333139429/
There were 818 likes.
From Pierre Yves Duchesne, her singing teacher and colleague, with the caption, “My beauty that I loved for almost 15 years, I hope you have a wonderful birthday. When a story begins with listening and respect, it refines and cuts to the end, for finally transforming into an immortal gem. I love you my sweet and beautiful.”
m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=332544272211371
From the Lara Fabian Greece FB site,
www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=485037236313867&set=a.221570682660525
A collection of birthday clips entitled “Birthday Queen” from Lara The Ring Fabian on youtube, at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvusVcFiv6Y
From Lara Fabian America FB site, a beautiful card,
www.facebook.com/larafabianamerica/photos/a.390576794773579/1280874632410453/
A nice pairing of photos of Lara at different ages, in effect honoring her birthdays across time, from the 'Lara Fabian Je t’aime' FB site, at
www.facebook.com/larafabianjetaime/photos/pcb.1123721305036222/1123721231702896/
www.facebook.com/larafabianjetaime/photos/pcb.1123721305036222/1123721265036226/
From the Lara Fabian Coeur du Lumiere FB site,
www.facebook.com/larafabiancoeurdelumiere/photos/a.271448360159464/974969969807296/
And the birthday greeting from the Lara Fabian Web FB site (https://www.facebook.com/larafabianweb/).
….among others… there were many beautiful cards made by fans, posted on various sites…
While not directly a birthday video, a “Lara Fabian History of Love with Gabriel” video was in effect being offered as such by Tele Loisirs (and the Lara Fabian Lockdown Sessions FB site), at
www.facebook.com/teleloisirsfr/videos/461099682075806
In other Star Academie news, the final auditions are being shown this week, the first appearing last night; promos for it can be found at
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/videos/1089161555266985
and
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/videos/813576936080204
As we know, it was pre-recorded, which means Lara is present.
And teachers for this year, of Lara, the Director, Guylaine Tremblay, and Gregory Charles are featured in a video, at
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/videos/1013752462541301
The first official Star Academie show starts next Sunday, 1/16, on TVA and TVA+.
Now here’s the next extract from Lara’s book “Je passe a table”:
-------------------------------------
Seventh Story - My New World
I arrive in Quebec in the city of Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts in the middle of winter, in the middle of magic, surrounded by a thousand candle lights. I think I will never get over the wonder that seizes me and that renews itself every time winter comes back and covers me with its light.
Very soon I realize that I feel at home. Very quickly, I understand perfectly this accent that others have so much difficulty to decipher.
Soon it becomes my accent.
My new way of speaking.
Rick is like a fish in water. He is in America. In his heart, a part of the child that will never leave him is realizing a dream. He is confident that this is just the beginning, he is certain that we will do great things.
He is convinced that we will return to Europe one day, victorious, full of awards and successful albums.
For me, at this moment, his strong spirit is a great teaching, a great lesson of life.
It is the demonstration before the time that the deep and persevering thinking produces a magic effect, almost quantum, which makes real in our reality all that we aspire to.
But in real life and in our reality, we will row more or less nine years. Nine...Yes, during which we will sometimes have difficulty paying the rent, buying a car, producing music, and even eating.
It is with a lot of tenderness that I remember this time.
Today, if I can really appreciate all the blessings I live, it's because I can put them in perspective with the path I had to follow.
A path that was forged with great courage and sacrifice.
Freshly arrived from our native Belgium, the landing is hard. We have to find jobs beyond the piano bars that hire us on weekends and pay a lousy salary for endless working hours.
So, on my side, I work in a supermarket, I do some housework and I lie to my mother so as not to worry her.
Rick also does everything: He produces second-rate jingles, responds to the requests of some producers who are not music lovers, because nobody knows who we are. We're not picky, we need the work.
In the midst of all these projects that allow us to overcome our physical difficulties and survive, Rick writes songs for young artists who are looking for themselves.
I think I remember a certain Marilou, young, beautiful as a sun, a girl with a great voice. Today, she regales us with her culinary talents, her sense of aesthetics and the beauty she spreads at least...three times a day.
And then, as always when we are facing our destiny and we know how to recognize it, what I call alignments of stars happens. One night, in one of those piano bars in Old Montreal, the same one where we were hired and where I will launch my first album a few months later, there is someone important.
Signing of the first album and epic promo tour
A woman. She believes in us, in me.
She will sign me. She will change my life.
My eponymous album will be released thanks to her, on August 13th 1991.
A few years later, she will be my manager. We will travel around the world together, ignoring all the priorities of our lives. In favor of this childhood dream.
Life will remind us.
This person will be for me a family, a big sister. One of these beings that we meet and that change our existence. Today, I don't have any contact with her anymore and it is maybe one of the biggest sadnesses of my life.
One of the biggest lessons too.
Maybe I did something along the way, something serious, that didn't allow me to keep her close to me.
If she reads these lines, she will know deep down that, despite all my blunders, all my mistakes and all my accidents in life, I have never stopped having for her all the gratitude my heart is capable of.
She knows that I have never stopped loving her.
Let's go back to my beginnings here.
Once I signed with Trans-Canada and Select, the major record companies of the day, the epic journey of promotion in a Chevrolet Lumina began.
This journey is epic. Rick and I sleep in the car.
We make coffee in the car.
We wash ourselves in the gas stations.
We leave the car engine running when we perform in Val-d'Or at minus 30 in the local cafes-theatres in front of twelve people.
We visit every radio station in the province. We sing live at every interview.
It's true, it's hard work, but it's very useful to make our self-titled album known throughout the province of Quebec.
That's what it meant to "get out the oars" in the early 90's.
This unique promotional tour is crowned by the famous Sonia Benztra where, because of a historic snowstorm, the whole of Quebec is in front of their television sets. Sonia makes me sing I Will Always Love You.
That night, Rick proposes to me.
I sell 100,000 albums in a week.
This is the part of the story that some people know well.
The one I've been hiding until now, is the one where Rick will explain to me a few days after the show that the wedding won't take place.
The situation is still precarious, he says, we have to focus on my career.
The wedding won't happen.
And then, in his book, it does not change anything.
We love each other, right?
Yes, we love each other.
I blame myself. But very quickly I trust his instincts, and I tell myself that I will live what there is to live in real time.
On his behalf, it is true that, very often at that time, we wondered how we would buy groceries.
Who would we land at to share a meal some days.
But thank God, Quebec is full of good and beautiful people who are generous and available.
I won't talk here about those families that I often praise and that, in the background, are still in my life. I will only say that, without these wonderful people - Lise, mother Richard, Marie Philippe, Laurence, Daniel, Serge, Danielle, Michel, Cecile, Valerie, Maude, Annick Jean, Belgazou, Francois, Danielle, Roxanne, Caroline, Martine, Jean-Pol, Coralie, Caroline and Candy -, I should have left Quebec long before the day when life made me drink the cup of the century on March 17th 2003.
What is certain is that beyond the immense human help we received and the unforgettable moments we lived, Rick and I lost each other.
In the name of this great dream, we have sacrificed a great love story, a family story, on the altar of noble ambitions.
Could it have been different?
We will never know.
I belong to the category of people who have no regrets. I prefer remorse.
When I look at my life today, I tell myself that I would not change a single step, not one of the steps that brought me here.
These sacrifices were really worth it, at least if you consider the reason for these sacrifices, because it was really a huge success.
First of all in Quebec, with more than a million albums sold in my dear province alone. Forty-one nights in a row at the Saint-Denis theatre. The Bell Center, and so on.
Felixes from the public and the industry.
A huge impact on the rest of my career across the Atlantic.
My surreal journey that, in the end, will have found twenty million hearts. Hundreds of thousands of spectators, all over the world.
But the craziest thing is that I will have been rewarded with a love affair with the public that has lasted thirty years.
So yes, there have been waves, and big ones. Rick and I have had a rough go of it, we have "parted ways" in every sense of the word. But strangely enough, even in the weeks when we had to choose between eating and paying the rent, we were able to bounce back, we were resourceful.
We didn't die.
The real suffering is something else.
In those moments, the "cabbage" was our greatest treasure. At that time, we were able to find cheap, in those supermarkets where things are sold in large quantities, "cabbages" of peas and sand-smoked bacon in profusion.
I still make this soup sometimes. It is delicious, nourishing and full of wonderful memories.
Today, I add fresh mint and serve it with garlic and olive oil croutons.
--------------------------------------------------------
The woman who helped Lara start her career, as we know, is Lisa Richard. Sensitively, Lara does not mention what ended their relationship.
Interesting photo(s)/video(s) of the week (in addition to the birthday pictures): from the Lara Fabian est ton ature FB site, a photo from Genevieve Charbonneau,
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=463892048438935&set=a.216252733202869
And a photo from TVA of the judges for the final auditions of the Star Academie, at
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/photos/a.361601375242829/780644706671825/
In the vein of unpublished or rare Lara videos, one that qualifies is Lara’s rendition of “Nuits Blanches”, which also happens to be first TV appearance, in Belgium 1986:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZmkvwvwVYc
The impact of Lara’s enforced isolation on her appearance at the Star Academie TV production will depend on her condition when the show goes ‘live’ next Sunday – her message dated 1/8 said it was “for this week”, and, as she also notes, the first show is in ‘a little over a week’(1/16). We’ll see what that ends up really meaning. Meanwhile, everybody else stay safe.
David
-------------------------------
“Hello to all,
I was happy to get on the stage of Gala Celebration 2022 and sing for you this Sunday, but it won't happen. Know I'm doing great, but I've been put in preventive isolation this week. This situation is out of my control I will be watching this big tv show just like you from my home. My friend and stage performer Joël Legendre had prepared a wonderful number that I hope to present you in the future.
So our reunion is in a little over a week at Star Academy, I am SO excited!
I love you guys
Lara”
--------------------------------
It was always a possibility when traveling, if that is when the ‘need for isolation’ arose; hopefully her ‘feeling great’ is the case, and there are no longer term implications.
And then on Sunday (while still in isolation), it was Lara’s 52nd birthday – hopefully she felt well enough and was in a position to celebrate it. Various congratulations were provided on professional and fan sites, for example:
From the Star Academie/TVA, with the caption, “Join us in wishing our favorite director, Lara Fabian, a happy birthday! 🥳 Tag her in the comments so she gets a wave of love tonight.”
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/photos/a.361601375242829/782635333139429/
There were 818 likes.
From Pierre Yves Duchesne, her singing teacher and colleague, with the caption, “My beauty that I loved for almost 15 years, I hope you have a wonderful birthday. When a story begins with listening and respect, it refines and cuts to the end, for finally transforming into an immortal gem. I love you my sweet and beautiful.”
m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=332544272211371
From the Lara Fabian Greece FB site,
www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=485037236313867&set=a.221570682660525
A collection of birthday clips entitled “Birthday Queen” from Lara The Ring Fabian on youtube, at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvusVcFiv6Y
From Lara Fabian America FB site, a beautiful card,
www.facebook.com/larafabianamerica/photos/a.390576794773579/1280874632410453/
A nice pairing of photos of Lara at different ages, in effect honoring her birthdays across time, from the 'Lara Fabian Je t’aime' FB site, at
www.facebook.com/larafabianjetaime/photos/pcb.1123721305036222/1123721231702896/
www.facebook.com/larafabianjetaime/photos/pcb.1123721305036222/1123721265036226/
From the Lara Fabian Coeur du Lumiere FB site,
www.facebook.com/larafabiancoeurdelumiere/photos/a.271448360159464/974969969807296/
And the birthday greeting from the Lara Fabian Web FB site (https://www.facebook.com/larafabianweb/).
….among others… there were many beautiful cards made by fans, posted on various sites…
While not directly a birthday video, a “Lara Fabian History of Love with Gabriel” video was in effect being offered as such by Tele Loisirs (and the Lara Fabian Lockdown Sessions FB site), at
www.facebook.com/teleloisirsfr/videos/461099682075806
In other Star Academie news, the final auditions are being shown this week, the first appearing last night; promos for it can be found at
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/videos/1089161555266985
and
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/videos/813576936080204
As we know, it was pre-recorded, which means Lara is present.
And teachers for this year, of Lara, the Director, Guylaine Tremblay, and Gregory Charles are featured in a video, at
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/videos/1013752462541301
The first official Star Academie show starts next Sunday, 1/16, on TVA and TVA+.
Now here’s the next extract from Lara’s book “Je passe a table”:
-------------------------------------
Seventh Story - My New World
I arrive in Quebec in the city of Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts in the middle of winter, in the middle of magic, surrounded by a thousand candle lights. I think I will never get over the wonder that seizes me and that renews itself every time winter comes back and covers me with its light.
Very soon I realize that I feel at home. Very quickly, I understand perfectly this accent that others have so much difficulty to decipher.
Soon it becomes my accent.
My new way of speaking.
Rick is like a fish in water. He is in America. In his heart, a part of the child that will never leave him is realizing a dream. He is confident that this is just the beginning, he is certain that we will do great things.
He is convinced that we will return to Europe one day, victorious, full of awards and successful albums.
For me, at this moment, his strong spirit is a great teaching, a great lesson of life.
It is the demonstration before the time that the deep and persevering thinking produces a magic effect, almost quantum, which makes real in our reality all that we aspire to.
But in real life and in our reality, we will row more or less nine years. Nine...Yes, during which we will sometimes have difficulty paying the rent, buying a car, producing music, and even eating.
It is with a lot of tenderness that I remember this time.
Today, if I can really appreciate all the blessings I live, it's because I can put them in perspective with the path I had to follow.
A path that was forged with great courage and sacrifice.
Freshly arrived from our native Belgium, the landing is hard. We have to find jobs beyond the piano bars that hire us on weekends and pay a lousy salary for endless working hours.
So, on my side, I work in a supermarket, I do some housework and I lie to my mother so as not to worry her.
Rick also does everything: He produces second-rate jingles, responds to the requests of some producers who are not music lovers, because nobody knows who we are. We're not picky, we need the work.
In the midst of all these projects that allow us to overcome our physical difficulties and survive, Rick writes songs for young artists who are looking for themselves.
I think I remember a certain Marilou, young, beautiful as a sun, a girl with a great voice. Today, she regales us with her culinary talents, her sense of aesthetics and the beauty she spreads at least...three times a day.
And then, as always when we are facing our destiny and we know how to recognize it, what I call alignments of stars happens. One night, in one of those piano bars in Old Montreal, the same one where we were hired and where I will launch my first album a few months later, there is someone important.
Signing of the first album and epic promo tour
A woman. She believes in us, in me.
She will sign me. She will change my life.
My eponymous album will be released thanks to her, on August 13th 1991.
A few years later, she will be my manager. We will travel around the world together, ignoring all the priorities of our lives. In favor of this childhood dream.
Life will remind us.
This person will be for me a family, a big sister. One of these beings that we meet and that change our existence. Today, I don't have any contact with her anymore and it is maybe one of the biggest sadnesses of my life.
One of the biggest lessons too.
Maybe I did something along the way, something serious, that didn't allow me to keep her close to me.
If she reads these lines, she will know deep down that, despite all my blunders, all my mistakes and all my accidents in life, I have never stopped having for her all the gratitude my heart is capable of.
She knows that I have never stopped loving her.
Let's go back to my beginnings here.
Once I signed with Trans-Canada and Select, the major record companies of the day, the epic journey of promotion in a Chevrolet Lumina began.
This journey is epic. Rick and I sleep in the car.
We make coffee in the car.
We wash ourselves in the gas stations.
We leave the car engine running when we perform in Val-d'Or at minus 30 in the local cafes-theatres in front of twelve people.
We visit every radio station in the province. We sing live at every interview.
It's true, it's hard work, but it's very useful to make our self-titled album known throughout the province of Quebec.
That's what it meant to "get out the oars" in the early 90's.
This unique promotional tour is crowned by the famous Sonia Benztra where, because of a historic snowstorm, the whole of Quebec is in front of their television sets. Sonia makes me sing I Will Always Love You.
That night, Rick proposes to me.
I sell 100,000 albums in a week.
This is the part of the story that some people know well.
The one I've been hiding until now, is the one where Rick will explain to me a few days after the show that the wedding won't take place.
The situation is still precarious, he says, we have to focus on my career.
The wedding won't happen.
And then, in his book, it does not change anything.
We love each other, right?
Yes, we love each other.
I blame myself. But very quickly I trust his instincts, and I tell myself that I will live what there is to live in real time.
On his behalf, it is true that, very often at that time, we wondered how we would buy groceries.
Who would we land at to share a meal some days.
But thank God, Quebec is full of good and beautiful people who are generous and available.
I won't talk here about those families that I often praise and that, in the background, are still in my life. I will only say that, without these wonderful people - Lise, mother Richard, Marie Philippe, Laurence, Daniel, Serge, Danielle, Michel, Cecile, Valerie, Maude, Annick Jean, Belgazou, Francois, Danielle, Roxanne, Caroline, Martine, Jean-Pol, Coralie, Caroline and Candy -, I should have left Quebec long before the day when life made me drink the cup of the century on March 17th 2003.
What is certain is that beyond the immense human help we received and the unforgettable moments we lived, Rick and I lost each other.
In the name of this great dream, we have sacrificed a great love story, a family story, on the altar of noble ambitions.
Could it have been different?
We will never know.
I belong to the category of people who have no regrets. I prefer remorse.
When I look at my life today, I tell myself that I would not change a single step, not one of the steps that brought me here.
These sacrifices were really worth it, at least if you consider the reason for these sacrifices, because it was really a huge success.
First of all in Quebec, with more than a million albums sold in my dear province alone. Forty-one nights in a row at the Saint-Denis theatre. The Bell Center, and so on.
Felixes from the public and the industry.
A huge impact on the rest of my career across the Atlantic.
My surreal journey that, in the end, will have found twenty million hearts. Hundreds of thousands of spectators, all over the world.
But the craziest thing is that I will have been rewarded with a love affair with the public that has lasted thirty years.
So yes, there have been waves, and big ones. Rick and I have had a rough go of it, we have "parted ways" in every sense of the word. But strangely enough, even in the weeks when we had to choose between eating and paying the rent, we were able to bounce back, we were resourceful.
We didn't die.
The real suffering is something else.
In those moments, the "cabbage" was our greatest treasure. At that time, we were able to find cheap, in those supermarkets where things are sold in large quantities, "cabbages" of peas and sand-smoked bacon in profusion.
I still make this soup sometimes. It is delicious, nourishing and full of wonderful memories.
Today, I add fresh mint and serve it with garlic and olive oil croutons.
--------------------------------------------------------
The woman who helped Lara start her career, as we know, is Lisa Richard. Sensitively, Lara does not mention what ended their relationship.
Interesting photo(s)/video(s) of the week (in addition to the birthday pictures): from the Lara Fabian est ton ature FB site, a photo from Genevieve Charbonneau,
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=463892048438935&set=a.216252733202869
And a photo from TVA of the judges for the final auditions of the Star Academie, at
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/photos/a.361601375242829/780644706671825/
In the vein of unpublished or rare Lara videos, one that qualifies is Lara’s rendition of “Nuits Blanches”, which also happens to be first TV appearance, in Belgium 1986:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZmkvwvwVYc
The impact of Lara’s enforced isolation on her appearance at the Star Academie TV production will depend on her condition when the show goes ‘live’ next Sunday – her message dated 1/8 said it was “for this week”, and, as she also notes, the first show is in ‘a little over a week’(1/16). We’ll see what that ends up really meaning. Meanwhile, everybody else stay safe.
David
