The French Journal

NYT Day #2: Bordeaux eats, Paris after midnight, lots of opera, Marie-Thérèse

Other items from the NYT:

• For the two people who read this blog and who have unlimited budgets and who will be spending time in Bordeaux in the near future, be sure to read Christine Muhlke's recap of high-end dining in the city. The rest of us without expense accounts may not find the article edifying. Featured are Restaurant Jean-Maire Amat, La Cape, La Grand'Vigne, Cordeillan-Bages, and Hostellerie de Plaisance. (Got to get myself one of these gigs.)
• If I'm reading Elaine Sciolino's article about Paris by Night correctly, after 1:00 AM your best options in the city are some elaborate noshing and a game of pool.
• A more-or-less forgotten survivor of the French Revolution is the subject of Susan Nagel's Marie-Thérèse, Child of Terror, subtitled "The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter." (Apparently, Louis XVI is less of a draw and doesn't merit any up-front mention. Ah, the indignities continue!) The NYT review says that "while a biographer's impulse to empathize with her subject is commendable, Nagel's desire to humanize Marie-Thérèse leads her to make some unconvincing assumptions."
• To scope out the future of New York City Opera, music critic Anthony Tommasini has hied himself to Paree to check out productions overseen by Gerald Mortier, who will take over the NYCO next year. Reading between the lines, New Yorkers and opera aficionados should prepare themselves for non-traditional experiences after Mortier hits the town.

French chart-toppers, YTD, 2008

These are the new CDs that have hit the number one spot on the charts so far this year in France:

• Francis Cabrel, Des roses et des ortils/Roses and Thorns. New songs by a popular, "Dylanesque" singer. There's no official clip that I can find, but you can hear a song, "Des hommes pareils/Equal Men," on this mash-up.

• Alain Bashung, Bleu Pétrole/Blue Petroleum. A French rocker of a certain age with a gift for experimentation and abstraction. Here's "La nuit je mens/The Night I Lie."

• Raphaël, Je sais que la terre est plate/I Know that the Earth is Flat. A sexy young pop folk artist whose influences are many. You can hear gypsy rhythms in "La vent d'hiver/Winter Wind," a video directed by Olivier Dahan (who is responsible for the movie La Vie en Rose). Shockable viewers may find the video...provocative.
• Les Enfoirés 2008/Les secrets des Enfoirés. This year's edition of the all-star fund-raising effort, benefitting an organization dedicated to feeding the needy. As usual, this clip of "L'Amitié/Friendship," features a "Who's Who" of French celebrities, if you want to test your French pop culture knowledge.
• Bernard Lavilliers/Samedi soir à Beyrouth/Saturday Night at Beyrouth Beirut. A respected vocalist who incorporates "world music" into his songs. This latest CD mixes blues, reggae, and Lebanese sounds. It has been promoted with a series of "webisodes" about the making of the recording. Here's the first, in French, about "Solitude."

• The Do/A Mouthful. Ah, some youth! A Finnish/French pop rock duo. I like.

Lots of other recordings have reached number one this year, but they all are holdovers from 2007. The exception: a release of Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Information taken from IFOP.

TFJ Round-up: Forbidden video, Messiaen, and angst

Odds, ends:

• The video I can't show you. The attempt at a provocative header is extremely misleading on my part. The material isn't lascivious; I can't show it because there's no embedding info. From The Times (London), it's called "Secret Champagne," and it tours the region while explaining, more or less, that you're better off drinking the stuff in France than in the U.K. The deadpan narrator amuses me.
• A year of Messiaen around. The 100th anniversary of French composer Olivier Messiaen's birth will be celebrated this year, and the NY Times has appreciation. Le mari likes him; me, the philistine, am less enamored. Too much cacophony. Here's a short profile:

• Blogger angst. Not French, but lately I've been looking into an abyss, partly because of an article in yesterday's NYT about the hazards of blogging: long hours, low pay, and unhealthy results (particularly for writers of a certain age). More on my spiritual crisis coming up someday.

Old news: "Double Je"

Last week, when I wrote about Les Victoires de la Musique, I didn't feature Christophe Willem's best song winner, "Double Je," b/c I had written about Willem before. Plus I hadn't heard the song. Thanks to Hidden Zipper, I've learned that a) the song is omnipresent in France, and b) it's the kind of hook-y recording that would have driven me into dancing ecstasy in my long-ago bar days. All of which is rationalization for throwing together this post and presenting the video here. Hardly current, but I like it. Follow the link for the French lyrics.

Willem, a.k.a. The Turtle, won top place in Nouvelle Star, France's version of American Idol.

Victoires de la Musique honors the top French recording artists of 2008

Les Victoires de la Musique, the French equivalent to the Grammys, were presented last week, honoring the best French recordings and artists of 2008. Vanessa Paradis was a big winner, with a pop album of the year citation for Divinidylle, as well as one for best female artist. Another double victor was Renan Luce, who won two "best newcomer" recognitions for himself and his album, Repenti. Luce, whose style is largely acoustic, is featured in the above video clip singing "Les Voisines."

Other major awards were given to Christophe Willem for Song of the Year ("Double je"), and Christophe Mae, the public's choice for best new artist. Abd al Malik was recognized as Best Male Artist, which Le Monde suggested was odd, since he had won last year in a different category and hasn't released any new material in the meantime. Other big awards were won by Etienne Daho for L'Invitation (Best Pop/Rock album); Justice (Electronic/Dance Music); MC Solaar/Chapitre 7 (Urban Music Album); Yael Naim (World Music); Eric Serra (Motion Picture score for Arthur et les Minimoys); Michel Polnareff (Best Live Performance); Feist (Video clip: 1234); and Le Soldat Rose (Best Musical DVD). Zazie was the night's loser, going 0 for 5.

France's Top Ten CDs - 2007

IFOP, the organization which compiles the lists in France of best-selling CDs, is never too hasty in releasing their year-end results. So here, at last, is my final top ten list for 2007: the most popular music in France, as measured by CD sales.

1. Life in Cartoon Motion, MIKA. Catchy pop-rock music, by an English artist with roots in the Hexagon. A video of his song "Grace Kelly" heads this post.
2. Mon Paradis, CHRISTOPHE MAE. More catchy pop-rock music, in French this time. J'adore "On s'attache."
3. La voix d'un ange, GRÉGORY LEMARCHAL. A mix of old and unreleased tracks by a young singer who had once won a French equivalent of American Idol and who died last year from Cystic Fibrosis.
4. Inventaire, CHRISTOPHE WILLEM. It would appear the French like young males with high voices. Willem is another talent contest winner.
5. La Caravane des Enfoirés 2007, LES ENFOIRÉS. Roughly translated as the "The Dumb Bastard's Caravan," this is a multi-star concert, proceeds going to charity.
6. Back to Black, AMY WHITEHOUSE. The British singer, Grammy winner, and tabloid favorite has conquered France, too.
7. Charango, YANNICK NOAH. France's most popular person, a former sports figure, with a multi-cultural style. This CD was also on last year's list.
8. Le Coeur d'un Homme/A Man's Heart, JOHNNY HALLYDAY. French rock's grand old man sings the blues.
9. Divinidylle, VANESSA PARADIS. This time, it's a light-voiced female singer.
10. A Fleur de toi, VITAA. Think Celine Dion mixed with a little R&B. The title is difficult to translate exactly; in context it means something like "Your scent haunts me."

Follow the links for more info or clips, or for the top 200.

Weekend with the NYT: Sarko & the Holocaust, Orpheus and Eurydice, Rivette, and the Old Boys Club, French division

Nothing like a long weekend to give you the opportunity to read stories from The New York Times:

• A Sarkozy Holocaust education strategy. M. le Président offered a plan whereby ten-year-olds at French schools will be assigned the name of a young Holocaust victim for them to learn about, an attempt to make sure the horrible event is never forgotten. The reaction has been negative, with critics saying that the tactic is too traumatic for this age group or that the president's action injects (once again) uncomfortable religious overtones into policy. Sarkozy has Jewish ancestry, although he is Catholic himself (which, with two divorces and three marriages, is an interesting place to be).
• A dance masterpiece at the Paris Opera Ballet. There's an ecstatic review of a production of Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice at the Paris Opera Ballet, choreographed by Pina Bausch. The dance is performed with a dual cast of dancers and singers: "...the dancers look amazingly at home with (Bausch's) angular physical vocabulary and austere emotional terrain. With the magnificent musicians, they offer complete submission to their material, and to us, the sublime."
• The French Business elite. A long, fascinating story looks at the leaders of French business and their closed ranks.
• A profile of Jacques Rivette.  The release of a new film, Ne touchez pas la hache (literally, "Don't Touch the Axe," but in the U.S. it's called The Duchess of Langeais) offers a reason to profile New Wave legend Jacques Rivette.

"His films, like Céline and Julie Go Boating, La Belle Noiseuse and Va Savoir, traffic in the spectral and the ineffable. Their plots overflow with paranoid conspiracies and secret codes. The Paris of his movies is a life-size board game, a labyrinth of signs. Everything is connected, or, perhaps more alarming, nothing is. His pet themes can seem dauntingly abstract: the allure of the theater, the line between acting and being, the enigmatic process of artistic creation, the curious means by which fictions take their shapes or take on lives of their own."

Henri Salvador, 1917 - 2008

Henri Salvador, the singer whose career spanned over seven decades and whose recent recordings won him renewed acclaim and audiences, has died. (AFP) Following is a post from last April that I wrote about him.

"Last year at this time, I knew only one recording by Henri Salvador, a nostalgic Christmas song, full of longing, called "C'est Noel, M'amie." Since then, however, I've become a fan. Salvador may not be the grand old man of French music -- there are other candidates, like Charles Aznavour, competing for the title -- but at the age of 90, he's a contender.

"Salvador was born in French Guyana to a Spanish father and a Caribbean Indian mother. At the age of seven Henri and his folks moved to France, and a few years later, the adolescent Salvador fell in love with jazz, a love which his parents supported by buying him a guitar.  By the time he was 16, Salvador was working in Paris cabarets and soon sharing a stage with one of his heroes, Django Reinhardt.

"The ensuing decades brought increasing levels of success. Salvador married, recorded hit records, starred on the stage, and performed on television in the U.S. and Italy. During the fifties, he formed a notable partnership with cult writer, Boris Vian, and together they wrote over 400 songs. Salvador's tunes often contained a touch of the comic, and his good humor is a significant part of his professional and personal reputation.

"Salvador never really retired, but his career has had a number of renaissances, including a smashing success in 2000 with the CD Chambre avec vue/"Room with view," which sold over two million copies and which won awards for Salvador in France for Best Male Singer and Best Pop Album. He recently released a Brazilian-influenced album, Rèverènce; he wrote most of the songs on it. Plans for the future include a role in a movie starring Oprah Winfrey, produced by Salvador's good friend, Quincy Jones.

"Two sources for this article are Radio France International's biography of Salvador, and a recent profile published The Guardian. The video is "Dans mon île" from Rèverènce."

L’Opéra Garnier from ah to zed

For some reason, when I first came across France Monthly a long time ago, I had the impression that the site was static. I couldn't have been more wrong. A monthly newsletter does a really terrific job in detailing the stories behind some of France's most intriguing regions and monuments.

In the December edition, for instance, you can find a thorough exploration of the magnificent l’Opéra Garnier in Paris. There's the dramatic story behind its construction, with famed architect Viollet-le-Duc sulking in the background because he lost the competition to design the building. Due to problems with the site and political upheavals, construction took over 13 years. The building was nearly sacrificed by revolutionaries during the uprising of 1871, and its completion only assured after a fire destroyed Paris's other remaining opera house. Along the way, architect Garnier constantly improvised to keep costs down, also using modern innovations (such as central heating and ventilation) which have contributed to the building's longevity.

France Monthly also offers a great feature to its newsletter: you can press a button and see the text in French.

French monks, Parts 2 & 3

Last spring, I wrote of a documentary about Carthusian monks called Into Great Silence, which became an unlikely cult hit. The movie is now available on DVD.  Around the same time, I'd also highlighted a piece about the monks of Solesmes, who are among the finest practitioners of Gregorian Chant. Last week, The Christian Science Monitor offered the reminiscences of a man who had visited that abbey as a youth, almost on a lark, not realizing that he was about to experience "such unearthly, beautiful, inexpressible moments...as if I had wandered into a performance of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra without a clue about what I was hearing." It's an anecdote, really, and feels truncated, but it reminds us nonetheless of a different, peaceful world that exists within the boundaries of France, and that is -- in various forms -- available for us to treasure.