There is a whole story to this. When I first started watching French TV I found myself watching a programme where Céline Dion was talking to a lady I didn't recognise about someone called 'Michel' of whom I had never heard. Then she sang a song called 'Ziggy - un garçon pas comme les autres' which I had never heard before and liked very much. Two years later France 2 screened a retrospective on a strange rock musical called Starmani, and the presenter was France Gall, the person to whom Dion had been talking, and the wife of Michel Berger, the composer.

I like rock musicals, but had never heard of Starmania, which was never produced in this country. It's a wonderful piece. So when, during a chat on Skype with a kind Canadian gentleman, he said that he had a recording, and would I like a clip for the site, I said yes. It's the same track I referred to above. I'm not going to include the text here, because you can always get them from the Internet. But try to do without. Enjoy - and then buy the DVD !

You would think that by watching French TV most evenings, one would encounter all the famous names of the French chanson. But not so. At the weekend a singer died whose name I had never heard - Jean Ferrat. Last night France 3 did a retrospective of this remarkable singer. And we have to have one of his best known song La femme est l'avenir de l'homme,

A comedy song from Michel Leeb Y une boum dans le bar-tabac d'en-bas. Do you know the French for a tongue-twister ? Une phrase amusante pour exercice de diction. Ah well....  Text available for this

France 3, screened Chabada, a sort of chat-show, where the guests were all singers or comedians from the 60s and 70s, and the ambiance one of one big happy family. I say that without cynicism.  French televised variety shows have a wonderful ambiance of tous ensemble. Here is a first clip from the show. Alain Souchon interviewed, and then singing a song to plug his latest album. Nice.

A wonderful documentary on Barbara in the series Un soir avec... Gerard Depardieu narrates, Barbara sings, and we enjoy the Maria Callas of the French chanson

The complete programme has been archived.

Here is another clip from Starmania, SOS Terrien en détresse. I include it without comment : it's beautiful

July 2010 and France Télévision is closed for the summer. At any rate no new material until September. So they put on nostalgia programmes with lots of old clips and some talking heads. I watched a film made by Mireille Dumas 4 idoles dans le vent, about France Gall, Françoise Hardy, Sheila and Sylvie Vartain, without much interest, until this moment which ends with the song Gainsbourg wrote for the very young Miss Gall, Les sucettes. The song made me laugh, of course, and the comments of the writer and also the ex prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. But we're more politically correct these days, and the final comment from France Gall, is perhaps less than funny....

From France Gall to Françoise Hardy, an altogether different type of artist. France 5 retransmitted a documentary on her. Here she is talking about her life and work, singing, and a little moment of Barbara.

Here is the last, beautiful song, from Starmaniam Le monde est stone. What an extraordinary work this is. Starmania was written in 1978 and is still of an astonishing relevance today. The rock musical is a form I have always liked, and I thought I knew them - but the French were hiding the best one of all. It's an opera strictly, being sung throughout. It's incredibly difficult to sing - think of SOS - Terrien en détresse, for example. And its themes are the eternal ones of our modern consumer societies.

This is a clip from the beginning of a splendid video, Paris, la visite, and I am immensely grateful to the student who sent me it. It could have gone under Society, because it is a documentary, with a text beautifully spoken by Bernard Giraudeau, but when I heard the song Paris s'éveille, I felt it had to go here

Chabada is France 2's popular music programme, and they did a special - Chabada séducteur - on the great heart-throbs of the music industry - of which there is no lack in France. Michel Sardou was the guest, as well as young singers of the present generation, such as Patrick Fiori, who starts by singing Sardou's wonderfully sulphurous Je vais t'aimer.  I know a lady who will like this clip....

Our library of tracks from Starmania - surely the greatest of all the rock operas - would not be complete without this bravura number, La blues du bueinessman. It has even added an expresson to the language. Often in the press one sees j'aurais voulu être ... Splendid song.

A second exerpt from Chabada séducteur which I enjoyed. Unashamed schmaltz...A couple of nice songs here.

I had enjoyed Starmania so much that I was delighted when a kind student sent me a clip from 'the most successful French musical comedy of all time' Roméo et Juliette - along with a warning that the words hardly measure up to Shakespeare, nor the music to Michel Berger.

Which is very, very true. However the piece is described as un spectacle. You have to imagine it being presented at the enormous Palais de Congrès to an audience ready to enjoy two and a half hours of serious schmaltz.  There is a place for that in life. So here is the balcony scene.

We had Roméo et Juliette last week. This weekend, another blockbuster musical which packed out the Palais des congrès,  Notre-Dame de Paris, and the trio Belle. I must say I rather like this. Good singers, a proper tenor being the priest, Patrick Fiori as the nice guy, and Garou as Quasimodo. And my thanks to the student who sent me it, thus giving me a very easy Saturday morning.

We must be coming to the end of this series of French musical comedies now (although if you know of others do let me know).
Here's an extract from one I liked a lot when I saw it - Les Dix Commandements. The song is Peine Maximum

A final extract from Starmania. Les Uns Contre les Autres.  A melancholy song typical of this work of Gallic pessimism .

I thought we'd had excerpts from all the major French musicals... Then,  Saturday night, I happened to catch on W9, a piece called Le Soldat Rose. It's a musical for children, with a narrator who tells the story of Joseph, a little boy who decides to spend the rest of his life living with the toys in a big store. The different numbers are performed by big-name French singers and comedians. Shirley and Dino are there, as is Francis Cabrel. Get yourself a copy - you'll enjoy it. Here is Mathieu Chedid as the soldier.

Of the new(ish) generation of French singers I rather like Patrick Fiori. France 2 did a programme on him. Here he is with singer Pauline

Dr Tom, ou la liberté en cavale, is rather like Le soldat rose - narrator, songs, and well-known singers coming together to make an entirely charming piece for young people. Here we have the introduction and the first number. I don't spend a lot of time rewinding and trying to understand difficult bits these days - you either understand or you don't - but in this song I did fine just up to the end where the final lines eluded me entirely. So if you can fill the gaps - do please email me !

An occasional series I never miss, is Chabada spéciale, a mixture of chat-show and spectacle, where singers sing their own, and other's numbers. The level of professionalism is quite astonishing, and the ambiance is very, very French. This one was for La journée de la femme, to raise money for the Association Paroles de femmes, for whose benefit some of France's top singers had given their time and talent to raise money. You can buy the disk Libres de chanter here, and I strongly urge you to do so. There are some causes we should all support. Here, Lian Foly sings Lily of Pierre Perret. As good as it gets....