Monday 30 May 2011

Sing Out Louise


Canadian musical theatre star Louise PItre is likely the only singer who has the distinction of portraying the doomed Fantine in Les Miserables in both English and French in Canada as well as Paris.  In her concert at Toronto’s Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) last month, she recalled that after singing I Dreamed a Dream and then dying in the first act, she did not get the rest of the night off.  Instead, she had to dress up as a boy and take to the barricades in the 1832 student uprising.
            Performances of the Montreal engagement each week alternated between French and English.  During one performance in French, the inevitable happened.  As the bodies of the dead revolutionaries, including Louise, sprawled across the barricade, their leader, Enjolras, sang out one of his final lines…in English!   His “dead” comrades were shocked and, needless to say, stunned as they struggled to stay still and not laugh.  Luckily the day was saved when the next singer had the presence of mind to sing in French and put the feckless gars back on track.  From that show on, signs were posted in the wings and in the orchestra pit to remind the cast which language was being sung at each performance.
            As laughter from the April audience died down, Louise asked the people whether they would like her to sing the anthemic I Dreamed a Dream in English or French.  “Both!” was the reply.  “Oh, I love Canada!” she muttered good-naturedly and then delivered a powerfully soul-wrenching rendition that showed why she is considered to be Canada’s first lady of the musical theatre.
            That sensational concert was a run- through of her performance this Wednesday night at the St. Lawrence Centre titled La Vie En Rouge that is being videotaped and recorded live for a future CD.  Her accompanists are Diane Leah on piano, George Koller on bass and Tom Jestadt on drums.
            Her latest CD, titled La Vie En Rouge – The Piaf Sessions, is entirely in French.  No release date has yet been set, but some copies will be available at her concert.
            The songs on the CD, mostly taken from the great Piaf’s repertoire, are:
·         La Vie, L’Amour (Chauvigny, M. Rivgauche)
·         La Foule (Michel Rigauche, Angel Cobral)
·         Ne Me Quitte Pas (Jacques Brel)
·         Milord (Marguerite Monnot, Georges Moustaki)
·         Mon Manege A Moi (J.Constantin, Norbert Glanzberg)
·         Et Maintenant (“What Now My Love”) (Gilbert Becaud)
·         La Vie En Rose (Edith Piaf, Louiguy)
·         Hymne A L’Amour (Edith Piaf, Marguerite Monnot)
·         Mon Dieu (Michel Vaucaire, Charles Dumont)
·         Mon Pays (Gilles Vigneault)
Pitre’s live recording of her St. Lawrence Concert, subtitled “songs from a red-hot heart from Piaf to Pitre by way of Broadway,” should be released this fall.  The working title is Louise Pitre Live.
It’s been said that Pitre, a 2002 Tony Award nominee, four-time Dora Award winner and—with Colm Wilkinson and Brent Carver—a founding member of the exciting Theatre 20 company, would be a house-hold name if she lived in the USA.  That’s likely true.  But only in Canada would she likely be able to flourish easily in both English and her native French, moving from Piaf, Brel and Vigneault to Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim. 
She has performed this concert in the USA and in Canada.  Next winter, she plans to perform in the Maritimes, British Columbia and again in the USA.  No musicals are lined up in the near future, but there is one particular show she is dying to do--“Gypsy.”  At MCC, before launching into her thrilling rendition of Some People, she confessed that she wanted a producer—perhaps one in the audience—to hire her to play the classic harridan and stage mother Mama Rose. The time may be right.  “Gypsy” is in the news again as a film adaptation starring Barbara Streisand is in negotiation.  However, Pitre’s passion is unyielding:  “I’d like to say `Sing Out, Louise’ instead of everybody else saying it to me,” she jokes.
 

-Dennis Kucherawy

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