The Song hall was to mark this year 2024 with a white stone. It is indeed, on May 22, the centenary of the one who was the attentive godfather of his Théâtre-Ecole, the TEC, founded six years ago, Charles Aznavour. This immense artist, who is still the most famous French singer in the world, is an exceptional figure for this institution led by Serge Hureau.
So what could be more relevant than putting TEC student artists at the centre of this celebration? And what could be smarter than partnering with festival Vis-à-vis, this unique event in France, which presents Théâtre Paris-Villette artistic and cultural projects carried out in prisons, to welcome amateur artists from a world where one would not think to go and get them?
After a period of collaborative work by all teachers and students for two months at the Centre pénitentiaire de Meaux, five evenings are now on the program! Thus, 12 students and 8 amateurs under court will perform together from May 17 to 24. The show is entitled And yet – Aznavour. Interview with Serge Hureau, director of the Hall de la Chanson, Centre national du patrimoine de la chanson, des variétés et des musiques actuelles,
What led you to link the centenary of Charles Aznavour to the annual festival Vis-à-vis?
Let me explain to you how this rapprochement can produce something magnificent. Celebrate the hundred years of the birth of Charles Aznavour with his songs, by our student artists (and this promotion composed mostly of women) and, moreover, with these amateur artists who are detained in a prison of men, it is a real convergence of situations and themes that cross intensely people, and bounce endlessly on the lyrics of the songs.
At Aznavour, each song becomes a small theatre that speaks volumes of a masculinity that wants to trade its brutality for caresses. Working these songs with men in detention, we hardly need to insist on the questions they ask about the education of boys, to become other than violent.
In the same spirit, another song speaks of a «relentless» deflection, a sensitive subject (Shirt case) ! Charles Aznavour himself, when he was sponsoring our school project, had come to attend a master class Aznavour reacted by saying, “When a student took hold of the song, she interpreted it as rape. She is all the more right that we wrote it for a woman, this song. Only Barbara wanted to sing it. »
Moreover, is it not extraordinary to hear a young man, who arrived at the end of his sentence and was released during the project, interpret Formidable, embodying a character confronted with his ignorance of English, and who manages to seduce, like the Harlequin of the commedia dell'arte, this eternal immigrant peasant who has just arrived in Venice, ingenuous and ingenious…
Why Aznavour? Why our students? Why the Meaux Penitentiary Center? It’s simple: for Aznavour, songs are not poems, but lyrics. A character speaks, develops a story and a situation that touches us on sensitive points, without sacrificing taboos. Thus, for example, in As they say, the singer embodies a transvestite, with a play on words, to which Jacques Lacan would not have found fault: I’m a man, oh! as they say…
Can Charles Aznavour still speak to the young people of today?
Aznavour is certainly a man of another era, he comes from the 50s. Musically, her generation is steeped in jazz, which arrived long before her, after the First World War. He has an exceptional sense of rhythm. Real man of stage, child of the ball, he became actor. And he is the author of his songs, of which he is often also the composer. He reveals a taste and a fine knowledge of words. He takes a committed look at the world (Die to love, Yesrushalaim…), assuming perfectly the function of the artist who borrows from all the identities of the characters and music. The public recognizes itself in him and he never goes out of style!
And then jazz and improvisation make him a surprisingly modern artist. He sings rubato : he steals times to find them a little further and better fall back on his feet. For our project, we worked directly on the stage, as is done in the theatre: by finding the musical arrangements according to the interpretations proposed by the singers.
Charles Aznavour was also able to adapt to musical evolutions and changing modes…
Charles Aznavour, by his own admission, had three masters. Maurice Chevalier, the first French to be known worldwide, which the Americans came to look for for their filmed musicals, Charles Trénet, for writing so inventive, for imagination and taste for words, for jazz, and finally Edith Piaf for the stage, the show, the performance, the game, the economy of gesture…
But he saw that the world was changing and he accepted it. Like Serge Gainsbourg, he began to write for the so-called "yéyé" wave. He gives to Sylvie Vartan The most beautiful to go dancing ; to Johnny Halliday Hold the night, whose sublime character should not be underestimated, if one dares to link his words to the great myths of love.
Moreover, his beginnings are not so easy. He is nicknamed maliciously no voice, because it does not have the safe of artists of previous generations, who were forming in the street or in operetta. He opposes this (not without reason) that he has the modern voice, that of the microphone. Edith Piaf, whom I will allow you to call, by playing with words, a true pygmalionne (Montand, Moustaki…), considers him his simple secretary, does not bother to put him in his place if he dares to risk aesthetic or musical opinions… Also, when he writes I hate Sundays, it does not give it any interest until, however, it hears Juliette Greco sing it and that, furiously, she in turn brilliantly seizes this song! Moreover, her daring (and indifferent to taboos) After sex he was banned from radio…
An innovative school dedicated to the heritage of song
« Our school is now six years old, explains Serge Hureau. It is subsidized by the Ministry of Culture [General Delegation for Artistic Creation], as are our productions and our functioning. We are associated with the University of Paris VIII, which awards a Master’s degree to our artist-students who already hold a license or a national diploma as an actor, musician or dancer.”
« An exemplary artist, Charles Aznavour was the godfather of our school. He died, unfortunately, two weeks before its opening! Our last conversations were about the selection criteria for the first class. It was exciting. And on the heritage side, it should be known that Charles Aznavour had bought and revitalized the Raoul Breton musical editions, with his partner, Gérard Davoust, which made him not only the owner and collector of his own works, but still the publisher of those of Charles Trénet and many artists of today. »
For the creation of And yet – Aznavour with Vis-à-vis, the TEC has almost entirely moved to Meaux: We arrived there with ten girls and three boys students, and all the teachers (music theory, singing, dancing, rhythm and interpretation). A daily work with its important specific constraints, which led us to decline five shows with different performers and programs. All offer a sample of all the eras of Aznavour. One of the shows will take place in prison, another at the Vis-à-Vis festival and the other three at the Hall de la Chanson, our own theatre in La Villette. »
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