Ombre Et Lumiere (051006) Part I

[lapayin]

Here is a translation of an interview Lara did. Very interesting.

Thank you Dentist for the written French words and thank you davidhr for the English translation.

Shadow and Light

PL: She has an international career, she is a very popular singer, in all meanings and the good meaning of the term, but she is also Lara Fabian, not only a performer, a writer-composer because one sometimes forgets that, everybody speaks of your personality, of your voice, your success, but you also write some songs.

LF: Since always. It is simple enough in fact, it is done as part of the expression of the instrument. I knew that very early, I was 8 years old when my parents bought me a piano and I began at the Brussels Academy. And for some years, I studied music and it came naturally enough, like a desire for expressoin.

PL: The writing…while performing

LF: Absolutely.

PL: But the performance, if I understood well, starts much earlier than 9 years old. You were 5 years old, you were in your father's car, himself a guitarist so that means that you are already in a world whch influences you, and you sing. And you say, or your father says: she is a singer.

LF: Then, it was the vocalizations of Bagneres at the time on the radio and I followed the singer who is a colorato-Soprano and papa truly stops on the side and says to me "what is it that you do" and I say " I am a singer papa" and he responds to me "No, no, one says I would like to become it" and I say "no papa I assure you… is it that that I am" and that he shouted that, he came back and in front of the door, he said "Loulou!, he calls my mother, we have a problem, your girl is a singer".

PL: Is it that it was a problem for him, your papa, that you be a singer?

LF: No, I think that it was a way for him of translating his dream. I think that it was also a way for him of discovering through this voyage that which he would have liked to do.

PL: And is this still the case today when he hears you?

LF: Me I see a happy papa, voilà. Then certain people see him and say that he is admiring, others say "he is happy". And me I prefer to see him happy, content, this is more of what touches me.

PL: And you feel happy about it? Because often the parents of substitution if I dare say, who have pushed their child on stage, it is often because they themselves wanted to be on stage, it is that, at the end of that, there is on their part jealousy, a semblence of reticence still?

LF: Then myself I have truly a double feeling. At the time that of my father who pushed me, history as I told you of translating this dream, and that that of my mother who was herself extremely reticent, but not because the realization of this dream would represent a strange mirror of that which hadn't been done, but rather because she was very very afraid of seeing me enter into that milieu. My mother is Sicilian,she is someone very down to earth at the same time very solitary. She truly has her feet planted in the earth and head in the sky. She is the holder of this true paradox. And she was very very afraid that this could change the nature of things. Now me I have the impression that it is precisely the nature which I am formed of that makes me the artist that I am and not the inverse.

PL: Mother Sicilian, father from the North…Belgian?

LF: Ah,, completely…the snow and the fire

PL: Yes the North and the South. I don't know who said it to you "you are the 1000 colors"?

LF: It is Serge Lama one day who spoke of me as this multitude of colors and of the shamelessness some unconscious part that that causes in the performance to be shaped of all these colors which are not in oneself at the base…which do not create in oneself harmony. Since that comes as a quest of understanding which is the source of this multitude of colors, this multitude of languages that one speaks as soon as one is small, of this multitude of studies that one makes oneself do. Voilà, it is necessary to finish to find ones place.

PL: Yes because, you speak some languages, you speak at least 5 or 6 of them?

LF: No, no, 4

PL: And you find yourself some time afterwards to have started and even a little more, with another color if I dare say, with another country. It is Canada, it is Quebec. Then is it that you are 20 years old, whereas you are already …that you exist in song, that you begin to make yourself known, that your talent begins to be appreciated, you go down there? You traverse the Altnatic and you live a good time in Quebec.

LF: Sincerely, there is a mixture of unconsciousness and of childhood. Then, when I arrived in this country, I arrived there in a very particular corner which is called St. Sauveur, these are the Laurentides, and it is the place perhaps the most magical of Quebec, in full winter. all was white, loaded with small lights, sufficiently magical. It resembled a little to…it is a space a little Homeric and at the time so natural. The people are extremely natural That is what they are, that it what you see. And for me it is that which touched me the most. This parallels the more conservative aspect of my education, more…I was going to say, surrounded by a yoke…more complex, I loved this simplicity and not in the simplistic meaning of the term, but truly in the natural sense that these people have. Their method of translating the music, that is part of their life. It is not exceptional to be a musician, it is not exceptional to have a voice or to sing correctly, 80% of Quebecois sing well, love music and make it a part of their daily life. Then I was happy inside a place where it is was not necessary to subtitle that which one loved, where it was not necessary to explain or express yourself other than by the voice on that which one was and that whch one loved.

PL: The voice therefore really, everyone recognizes this voice and one of those who inspires you in the exploitation of this voice is Barbra Streisand. You have a great admiration for this American artist.

LF: Between another, her and Maria Callas perhaps still more particularly for the divinity of this voice, the celestial gift. Something incromprehensive, elusive. It is perhaps this which touches me the most when I listen to a voice. Freddie Mercury also and have this faculty of shifting time and space. Voilà, for me that is what is pleasing, it is this timeless aspect of the artist, it is that which he could convley could introduce the times, whatever be his musical style. That he doesn't schematisize into a category or a label. Voilà. It is, I think, this artist who could suffer the most. It is to rediscover oneself despite being inside a space that is described by somone other than oneself.

PL: Your voice LF permits you all the same to face up to an evening at the Stade of France, to this incredible challenge, to be next to an enormous voice, the one that we sometimes call "the beast", Johnny Hallyday, and you sang together "Requiem pour un fou" and that was, I imagine, and that interests me that you speak to me of it, a distinctive moment, no?

LF: That was perhaps one of those moments the….it is scenically the strongest that I have lived. Because there is a vibratory discharge which comes from 80,000 individuals who are facing you and who be in it…I was going to say a discharge which could be raising you, be disorienting you completely. And the luck that I have had is that facing me I had someone who was truly into generosity and not into putting to the test. Voilà,, because to find oneself facing someone who has this aura, this charisma, this energy, that could really be very destabiliziing. Now for myself that which I lived…again one time there space and time didn't take place and I lived an extremely strong instant, filled with this vibration. I was not familiar with that boost. And in fact, one says always that: we succeed in the things that we have never done beforehand and that for the first time we have this audacity, this courage, and me I always return to this innocence, and to the child, to naivetee, it is truly at each time that I am before a test like that, because for me this was one of them, I remember the chld in myself who could not at all enter into a piece, sing without fear, put oneself at the piano at the time of her last exam at the Conservatory and say that it wasn't serious. In fact, without the stakes, to go there with joy, the pleasure, while forgetting the stakes.

To be continued

[lapayin]

PL: That not being afraid of being next to Johnny at the Stade de France, it is a small thing what! Hahaha!

LF: Frankly me I had….no I cannot say that. No but I know, but beyond the fear this was luck…this was a luck, there has not…and I say properly luck and not appropriateness. There was a worthy moment of these star moments that one can live when one does this career which are outside of ourselves, of any control, of any mastery, and above all of any experience.

PL: Yes but you know the consequences afterwards. That puts you still more 'to the poster' if I dare say and makes you climb one or two notches.

LF: Yes, he was very generous. That which overwhelmed me it is that at a given moment, between the moment when we did it for the first time and the time when we did it the second time in the Stade, because it was necessary this first meeting that it was done around the 'Restos du cœur'. He came to see me and takes my wrist and does for me "There is something….one would say myself in woman". And I found that very troubling, I find that this was a very very beautiful compliment and at the same time that completely disconcerted me because after the bar was very very high. It was necessary to go there at his side.

PL: So this voice is worth for you also a given moment in your career, your work, a kind of this which you call practically, and this is a very very strong word, 'media lynchting'. It is to say that you had the sensation, the certainty that you were attacked, criticized and you said "I did not imagine that one could have there such cruetly, such violence.

LF: Yes it is true because when one has 15 years of Quebec in the body, it is truly that, these people who are of a great gentleness, truly of a great courtesy, who love talent, who love eclecticism, who love this way that one has of projecting oneself with passion, that does not give rise to mockery. One can love or not love, but not loving shoulld not create hatred, cruelty, fury.

PL: Then what is it that happened? What is it that you did for that, that lasted a year, there was an erupting media, not all the media, but tell me, what is it that happened? And how do you feel about that? How do you live it when that happens to you?

LF: When that happens? OK, because for me there is a prescription. I am far from it. Listen, quite frankly, it hurts. It hurts and one does not understand the injustice behind it. Because one can like or not like an artist, have the absolute right of saying it and what was the most injustice is this cruelty, because you speak of an impression of lynching, it was not an impression, it was a certainty, it is a true product. Well one has the right as I said to you, but when one doesn't know an artist and one bases oneself on an element, which becomes her personallity, which is not it, which becomes a caricature and that this caricature then becomes the personality of the artist and that touches even one's nature, to the base…the voice it is me. You see, it is not that one element. Then yes I am an author, yes I write music, yes, but well that that one sees in the first place it is…

PL: Pardon, but a question of being more precise, who is it that you reproach? It is the press, the radio and the television you reproach precisely?

LF: Of singing too strongly. Voilà, that which one said of me… what's crazy is that in talking again of Johnny, if one can make a parallel, what was strange is that one rarely reproaches a man be he Hallyday, Pagny or Andrea Bocelli, of singing too strongly. And, suddenly, a woman who arrives with this expression, perhaps this excessive aspect, I think sincerely that I surely gave a part of the stick to beat me, I believe it, I believe it. I believe that my extremely passionate approach, but totally…in fact, I do not have to try to avoid certain things while giving too much of others. I simply was. This is very difficult to be…I cannot paraphrase. It is difficult to be and then when you are in your path (or voice), with all the indiscretions and the imperfections of your age and of your immaturity and that you are in this excess that comes at once of your structure educationally, of certain taking of risks in which you are obliged to return to because one puts you to the challenge at a certain moment, even quite little "You will not get there", "what are you thinking" " but you dream of what" and that suddenly this "you will not get there" "what are you thinking", "but you dream of what" becomes "but you will see, let me stretch my arms, perhaps I will get there". And it is then that the excess is born, it is then that the immodesty becomes an imperfection, because immodesty can be very pretty, there are moments when that can be very charming. And there no. There suddenly this stretched arm, this voice that I have exploited from the bottom to the top of its range, had become…

PL: Is it that, in a certain way, you say I gave the stick to beat me:, is it that your behavior at this time, millions of discs sold, the popularity, the presence everywhere, on all the stages, did not intoxicate you, intoxicated to the point, pardon because you say that you love La Callas, of playing the Diva?

LF: Then for me the diva, first I don't consider myself at all like a diva, I have not still…I have neither this place, nor this seniority, not this luck. A diva for me that marks perfection and permanence. A diva isn't in this sense, I was going to say popular term, that which one says of it today. Someone who would love that one change the color of his lodging and that one brings him broccoli in cheddar at 4 in the morning. This is not a diva. Therefore the diva today it is the expression of someone capricious, who has very little talent and that of making demands.

PL: But tell me, have you not at a given moment swayed a little bit?

LF: Ah!...Then I happen to not respond to this question while being in the personnage that I was, because if you tell me that it is because I was in a personnage.

PL: No, no, I ask. I was not being a witness of that. I say to myself that this injustice of which you complain to just title, had perhaps also one or two reasons to be?

LF: Me I believe that this was really the result of my excessive and passionate temperament. I believe that it is difficult for certain people, because if one analyzes this critique, one says critique but a critique it is not, of this cruelty one will say, that which is incredible for me and crazy it is that one acclaimed me for the same reasons that one disparaged me. It is that which is exceptional. Then I say to myself is it that I cannot today, with the distance, because there is a prescription, that truly takes some years, I will try to remember what had really been the right way round of this expression, of this that was loved the right way round of this expression.

PL: When you said that there is a prescription, this erupting disappeared like the storm, today it goes. They have accepted you LF, you are admitted, no?

LF: Yes, but because I have grown also, when I said to you the stick that I held to beat me was also…came from this immaturity, from this unknowing, me I didn't know, I didn't know that one could battle with that, I didn't know. And that which was fabulous it is that it created a magnificant internal voyage, a rather painful introspection, but which brought some fabulous fruit. I rediscovered one day the joy and the lightness after this erupting.

PL: But you were hurt. You have said that it hurt, it is cruel. Is it that these personal attacks hurt to the point of creating I don't know what health problem mental as well as physical?

LF: Yes because I am a fiery one, a Sicillian and I somatize a lot and then I have this faculty of recreating by the blood that which I feel in the head?

PL: This translates how? Weakness?

LF: Yes a great fatigue and at the same time like I am someone… I have rather…like the Quebecois say I have a tightly woven tapestry. I was a very loved and very well nourished child therefore that allowed me to pass this period, which was a period of illness yes of course of psychological disease. I did…I looked enormously for help at that moment.

[lapayin]

PL: Where do you find it at this moment?

LF: Me I've had infinite luck of meeting that which I call my pearl necklace. They are some women, moreover some women strangely, who did some very different things. There was an osteopath, there was a woman who practices biological decoding, which is an alternative medicine extremely concentrated, that permits one to find the source of that which is making one ill in very few meetings and of not overlooking that which makes you ill while curing the symptoms. It is a way of tracing the path. And it is very interesting for an artist to do that. That allows…that allows not getting stopped any longer by the details. That allows putting things into perspective and finding a detachment thanks to this place where finally one puts into perspective, finallly one steps back and says to oneself, "but well, it is not serious, it is never that which certain people think. And they have the right of thinking that which they think, of loving you or not loving you". And someone said to me recently, don't look for unconditional love, don't look to have love from each and everyone. That should not have this imoprtance. And he was right. That has none. The important thing is to keep those who we love for good reasons and also we keep those for the sole reaons that have importance for me… the sole reasons I should say that for me has importance, it is that one can, despite all that stay who we are, remain who we are.

PL: And then there are those who you call "the Others", with a capital O. the group of souls you say. You think that there is like that some affinities and some meetings between man and woman, between woman and woman, man and man. There is a theory on that I think, there are some books?

LF: Of course, of course, then certain people speak of reincarnation, others of quite simply recognition. In the sense…this immediacy represents certainly some things that surpass us. Finally, I would find it very very pretentious that before and after us there is nothing. I would feel very alone especially. I often feel alone besides, in this place, in this questioning and it reassures me to find these Others. Then it is crazy because it is truly while aging that I meet them more and more. And I think that it is very simple, it is because me also I have found this center, and not in the egotistical sense of the term, in the sense of rediscovering a center, a balance, an equilibrium, a correctness, voilà. And suddenly the Others, who themselves also are, inside of themselves are built, not looking for the other as a deficient being looks for a stick on which to lean, but looks for the other to simply share in this complimentarity.

PL: In a climate of clemency, I noted, since I have well read all that you have related about yourself, that you had a grandmother who said to you one day "be lenient". This is a beautiful adjective. What is it that she meant by that?

LF: I think that she mixed tolerance and serenity. I think that this is clemency. It is when in the breadth of this tolerance one finds a way to put into perspective, to be detached and suddenly this is….Then one is far from it because I think at the same time, while you ask me this question, that makes me reflect on her face, to this way that she had of expressing to me this clemency. That almost set off some pantomimes. She had physically a a pose of the body, a way of being, which expressed this softness, this wisdom and this clemency. And I believe that few words suffice exactly when one can express this clemency.

PL: You have also pronounced many times, and à propos of Johnny Hallyday in particular, the adjective generous, generosity. And you said one day that one of the people that you admire the most was Daniel Balavoine, dead already a very long time, this singer of whom you say that he had also generosity. You worked with him?

LF: I never had this luck. This is really an impression once more that is based on these meetings of the soul. Then you know sometimes one does not meet these people, myself I have this feeling for example…with Jacques Brel, where I see in this distress and at the same time this force finally something that I recognize. But unhappily one doesn't meet all those with whom we seem to have a correspondence.

PL: You mention also some women who you admire: Romy Schneider, Grace Kelly. Why: Because they are…because you feel yourself so different from them? Or you would want to follow their desinty, it is a desinty very fragile nevertheless, it doesn't go very well, what?

LF: No it is true, it doesn't go well. No it is a lot more…my look is very much more sober, doesn't go so far. It is truly this elegance, this refinement, which is an inspiration. One doesn't admire people because one would like to resemble them or that one would want that their life corresponds to ours, one admires them also sometimes because one carries a simple look and one finds them beautiful, or delicate, or elegant, it is the case of these two women. Intelligent also, I find that Romy was a very intelligent woman.

PL: Except that she paid for it very dearly.

LF: Her humanity yes. Then this is that which poses the question of instinct. Is it that our instinct sometimes betrays us? It is that despite intelligence, despite experience, is it that one can evade paying this price, by using instinct?

PL: Is it that you accord more iimportance to our instinct and to your intuition than to what you call intelligence?

LF: I think that instinct is an intelligence. So for me it is totally tied. Simply to be able to listen to this small voice. One is not always, in any case not right away in our lives, listening to this voice, this instinct. Not right away.

PL: A short while before beginning this discussion, Maggie who you know and who produces this broadcast, you said "give-me your thumb" and you did that like that…then it seems that that is part of a certain number of rites to which you devote yourself before going on stage. Then there is one touches the thumb of the musicians, that I believe that there are many people who do that and then, then you go very far, it is necessary to find some cables to make a cross with the cables, is it that?

LF: Yes but at the same time it is simple, it is to say that as I don't desire to bother that this be a concept which is a little religious at the base and which is not it, which is a means of reassuring oneself. It is a lot closer to superstition than to faith. Besides I am much more a woman of faith than a woman of superstition. I look for voilà this small symbol, but I have also an object on me which is a rosary which was given to me by someone, that I always carry on me when I go up on stage. Actually I go up with my left foot only, go to know why!

PL: Then this is superstition, nevertheless?

LF: Completely, then perhaps that meets this ritual, the ritual of the artist who reassures himself that it is nothing to go do this….

PL: He reassures himself because he is afraid, despite the years of experience, of career, of successes, of success? When you get up on stage LF with your left foot, you are afraid?

LF: Yes…and not that of my left foot. When I go on stage yes I am afraid and there again I do call for the child. At that moment I have the impression, finally I always have had it perhaps that I will always have it, that this chilld saves my life each time.

PL: The word child can lead us to the 'why' that habitually closes this broadcast. You have in several return trips said "if I don't have a child I would die. If I don't have a child, my life would be a failure." Why?

LF: Because they are the continuation of "can do better" and they allow us to find certain answers that we ourselves don't have, to those we ourselves have not found the answers.

PL: At the time of when is one with that? It is necessary to make the child.

LF: Yes, ah yes! It is necessary to make it. It is…it is more than a desire, it is a fact. I believe in synchronicity, I believe in the correctness of synchronicity in life. I think that one cannot change the order of the seasons, there are some things to live, there is a course, then sometimes it is chaotic, but it leads up to the proper end, to the proper person, to the event which corresponds to us. Voilà.

PL: This event, it is the child to come?

LF: Yes. It is perhaps the child to come, It is also the way myself I would have of living it in the course of this that I want to continue to do in my life. To be.

PL: You nevertheless said: I would die if I didn't have a child" Why"

LF: ah la la! This Italian in me. From time to time she truly must calm herself. I would die of it…I prefer the notion.. of "I would live better for it" voilà. Why? Because that is in my fiber, it is in my genes. I am the 5th generation of the line of Sicilian who have put some women into the world for….to continue to be. Voilà. Through these women. And I find that they are, because there is a sixth generation of them, I find that they are of more and more healthy, more and more simple, more and more beautiful.

PL: Thank you very much

LF: To you.

[achebeautiful]

Wow! What an incredible interview! There is a lot here, and after everyone has read it we should have some discussion on it! What do you all say?