PORTRAIT OF MADELEINE
Madeleine first saw the light of the world in Paris; she grew up in a slum of the
French capital and suffered through difficult times in her earliest youth. Tenacious
and ambitious, she received her secondary school certificate from the national distance learning school despite the most adverse circumstances. Although it was a serious financial burden, her parents allowed her to visit the conservatory. She studied
viola and voice with the former Paris opera singer, Madame Cumia. Although Madeleine actually comes from the world of opera, her heart has been given to the French
chanson.
“Without music, I am like a flower without water,” she freely admits, and the listener hears how honestly she means this with every song she sings.
She is small and lively, but her impressive voice and expressive charisma have audiences raising the roof at every performance.
Her world is the stage, the direct contact to her public, the interchange of emotions,
the listener as a mirror of her own soul, the famous spark that jumps between artist
and audience. No wonder, for her repertoire contains the songs that made Edith Piaf
famous. One also hears that her voice is very similar to that of Edith Piaf. She is able
to empathize closely with her great role model and is an outstanding interpreter of her
music.
Madeleine’s person is best described by the word “life.” She can be charming, can
lure and flatter, be as brash as a young boy from the Paris streets, or be carried away
by her stormy temperament, yet always remain firmly rooted in the tradition of the
French chanson.
But Madeleine is not just an imitation; her skill has many more facets. She demonstrates her powers in the songs of Charles Aznavour or Jacques Brel or, even more
strongly, in her own compositions with their German or French lyrics.
When you meet Madeleine, you sense the joy which quickens, fills and conveys this
woman. Her love belongs to her public, and her public returns her love with gratitude
and enthusiasm. No one can resist the joie de vivre of Madeleine.
Madeleine, the chanson DIVA of today.
Source:
LIVE-Magazine March/April 02 (C.M.)
Rheinpfalzzeitung No. 266 (H. J. Müller)
VDM Quirini Medien
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Edith Piaf’s Meeting with Jean Cocteau
Edith Piaf met Jean Cocteau at the publishing company Raoul Breton. Jean Cocteau
immediately dispelled Edith Piaf’s discomfort with the words: “We both belong to the
world of poetry.”
Not only the public was enchanted by Edith Piaf; all of the intellectuals of the epoch
were as well. Edith Piaf left no man cold. Jean Cocteau was the first and became a
loyal friend. He wrote enthusiastic reports and texts as an homage to her, such as “The
Phantom from Marseille,” a monologue based on a fairy tale of the same name,
which, however, she never performed, and “The Beautiful Indifferent One,” a one-act
play which she performed in 1940 and 1953.
One evening in 1939, Edith Piaf met a nonchalant, calm man in “Caravelle,” a bar
where she usually had a drink before her performance in “Night Club,” as she, fascinated, told the story!
Edith Piaf was impressed by this fellow because he led her into a different world from
these “voyeurs who surround you and think that they are the greatest”!
He is a son from a good family, a gentleman, actor, and is singing not far away in
“L’Amiral.” It is the beginning of a new love, loud, passionate, wonderful, says Edith
Piaf.
The two perform together: “The Beautiful Indifferent One,” this play in which the actress quickly identified with Edith Piaf. Everything appears to be a copy of the original. From the turbulent relationship with Paul Meurisse to the rising of the curtain on
the actress, who stands alone in a petite black dress and is also a chanson singer.
A woman is waiting for her friend; he arrives, does not say a word, allows her to insult him. He pushes her away and leaves. Only the actress speaks:
“I know what you would like, I know exactly! ... You would like to come and go,
would like to do anything that pops into your head. Sleep with the entire world and
know that I, who you apparently love, am sitting in a vault behind a door with three
locks and that you have the keys in your pocket. And then you would be satisfied.
That is beastly! Beastly!...”
The premiere of the play is in “Bouffes Parisiens” with Paul Meurisse as her partner,
sets by Christian Berard and choreography by André Brulé, from 16 February to April
1940. It was a great success. Edith Piaf was as convincing on stage as in her chansons.
Paul Meurisse played the silent gigolo role and Edith Piaf the deserted singer.
The play is performed again in April 1953, in the “Marigny Theatre,” sets by Lila de
Nobili and choreography by Raymond Rouleau, with Jacques Pills, her husband, as
her partner. The song, “Je t’ai dan la peau,” which he and Gilbert Becaud wrote,
brought the two of them together.
He was a good husband who had no talent for theatre (Edith Piaf had to pay his
way)!...
“The Beautiful Indifferent One” has not been performed since.
Jean Cocteau and Edith Piaf died on 11 October 1963. His death went almost unnoticed because of the death of Edith Piaf.
Madeleine Bossard
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Portrait of Edith Piaf
Edith Piaf! ... Is there anyone who has never heard this name? ...
A name which has not only been talked about constantly for 40 years, but which still
never fails, despite all the time that has passed, to cause hearts to beat more quickly.
She symbolizes the sense of humanity in which all of us, somehow, sometime, find
ourselves again and again: love, suffering, transitory joys which life holds for every
human being.
People want to see and feel what is true, the things so often missing in life: love and
passion, friendship and affection, warmth and understanding. People can only convey,
pass on or give what they themselves know, have experienced, or have had and lost.
No other woman has ever been able to sing of the greatest of human emotions, “love,”
with so many forms of expression and such a rich range of sound.
Her enormous oeuvre (more than 200 recordings) is proof of her extreme sensitivity.
Edit Piaf, née Gasson, born in Belleville (Paris) on 15 December 1915 and died on 11
October 1963, knew only misery and abuse in her childhood. Growing up without a
mother, she was not taught that love could be tender, loyal and sweet. Her child’s
heart was continuously starved for warmth, affection and love, which she lacked for
such a long time.
Although she became very famous, in the core of her soul she remained something of
a poor, all too credulous girl who untiringly chased the same dream of being happy
and loved.
This constant, greedy, desperate search for love explains Edith Piaf’s irrepressible
will to give herself totally to the chanson. She sang with emotion, with her heart and
soul, drawing on the history of humanity. Her hunger for love and her love of singing
were the elixir of her life. Edit Piaf: “c’est l’amour toujours!”
Fragile, almost insignificant, she pulled from the depths of her being the heartrending, soulful accents which confounded her audience ... Audiences sensed precisely her honesty in her realistic chansons when they felt the unchanging emotions of
human beings which transcend fashions and time. The street and the common people
she came from identified with Edith Piaf. That is the key to her true genius.
As fragile as she was, she was also powerful and had a supernatural and incomparable
strength of will. Her life was a dark novel with the occasional sky-blue chapter whenever a new man (a new hope!) suddenly appeared in her deep despair.
She was a demanding creature, full of delusions and contradictions. The men who
shared Edith Piaf’s life were all completely marked by her and were never able to forget her. But, although she loved the men so very much .. they were always “the others.” Her chansons, in contrast, are Piaf: her flesh, her blood, her head, her heart and
her soul.
Despite her stormy life, she kept her arms open for love and for all those who gave
her the feeling of experiencing the dreams of her chansons. Although she was often
disappointed, she searched for love and warmth until the last day of her life.
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Much has been written about Edith Piaf’s life, about the men, the alcohol and the
drugs. But all too often one forgets to mention that every physical and chronic suffering makes the taking of drugs inevitable (as was necessary for Edith Piaf), and it automatically leads to a habit. Few can extract themselves from its snares.
But our lives do not belong to us, and courage is nothing more than continuing on to
the end. Her extreme will to sing was a personal act of survival. There was no other
way for her to find the strength to go on. Nothing in the world kept her from singing,
not even her deepest despair over the death of Marcel Cerdan. Only when she was
singing did she experience the fulfilment of her dreams and hopes. Her public was
also her greatest accomplice, greedy to hear her and to dream as well.
Today, 40 years after her death, she proves again and again her immortality by always
being present for us, beloved and praised in song. Her voice and her chansons resound
everywhere with the same power to move hearts. As long as the world has existed and
been populated by people, even though times and fashions change, the feelings of the
heart, the essence of people’s lives remain unchanged. What moved us in Edith Piaf’s
songs yesterday moves us today, tomorrow and on into the future. That is why her
work, as before, speaks to us of today, full of power until the end of time for anyone
who wants to discover Edith Piaf.
As long as there are people who sing her songs and other who want to hear them,
Edith Piaf will continue to live among us.
Let us leave this woman, with her good and bad traits, to sleep in peace, because she
was also only human, and concentrate on what is important: her work, a memory
which we have inherited, a treasure chest of jewels such as love, warmth, tenderness,
affection, understanding, loyalty and much more!...
Edith Piaf has become a legend of mythical proportions who takes command of body
and soul, the symbol of the “Chanson d’Amour.”
Madeleine Bossard
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Funny and bubbly as champagne.
“You Let Yourself Go” by Charles Aznavour
Live Singing
- Solo, with semi-playback
or
- With piano accompaniment
Madeleine
Author Composer Singer Poet Actress Producer
LE BEL INDIFFERENT
The Beautiful Indifferent One
by Jean Cocteau
Written for Mademoiselle Edith Piaf
World premiere in Paris in 1940 in the theatre “Bouffes Parisien” with Paul Meurisse
as partner.
Performed again in 1953 in the theatre “Marigny” with Jacques Pills, her husband, as
partner.
Performances in German and/or French possible
The chanson bears the heavy sweetness of the street life of Paris. Madeleine Bossard
interprets the songs of this demanding genre with savoir vivre full of humour and dignity, bringing Montmartre and its inhabitants to life before the inner eye of her fascinated listeners. Upright and proud, she carries forward the heritage of Edith Piaf.
She is the master of Piaf’s chansons d’amour as well as of her own compositions, interpreting them with royal grace and brilliance full of love. Sung in French and/or
German.
You and your guests will be amazed by this event par excellence.
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Repertoire:
Selection of Edith Piaf’s chansons:
Selection of her own compositions:
and many more songs from Madeleine, Edith Piaf and other artists.
References:
Available recording:
Simplement Femme
Simply a Woman
Four-time winner of the Internet Double Gold CD
Theatre & Chansons
40th Anniversary of Her Death
Hommage à Edith Piaf
Madeleine
The Voice from Paris
Queen of the Chanson d’Amour