Celebrating the ‘Formidable’ Aznavour
The French legend’s life is told through music and multimedia storytelling
Come prepared with a wishlist this weekend at Dubai Opera, where Formidable! The Show, a tribute to Charles Aznavour, runs until today. For at the end of the multimedia show that traverses the life of the French legend, there’s a 20-minute segment where you can, as an audience member, ask for your favourite number to be performed.
Gil Marsalla, the director and producer, spoke to tabloid ahead of the show, and explained why the moment is ripe for the world to be wooed all over again by Aznavour’s music. It’s a question of love. “Charles was a poet and a lover, and he wrote about 1,200 songs about love,” says Marsalla, “And love [is] actually [what] we need in the world [right now].”
THE CHALLENGES
The difficulty lay then twofold. One to portray the master musician’s life. The other to dive through his huge catalogue and decide on about 30 pieces that could proficiently tell his story.
And there certainly was much to tell. Aznavour was born in 1924 in Paris. He was named Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian by his Armenian parents. At age nine, the young talent left school to pursue a career on stage.
He acted, and sang; by the end of his life — he died at age 94 — he had sold more than 100 million records and had about 1,400 songs to his name.
To get the cadence just right, the director decided to use “[an] original picture of Charles Aznavour when he was young. And we also create specific artwork and also there is special effects that we are doing during the show,” he explains.
It is perhaps a natural transition for
Charles Aznavour with actor Grison and director Gil Marsalla.
Marsalla to take on the ‘French Frank Sanatra’; he also worked on a performance that showcased the life of Edith Piaf, called Piaf! Le Spectacle, in 2019. [She was Aznavour’s old friend — and flatmate.]
It’s all part of Marsalla’s grand plan. “I try to develop and preserve the French patrimony,” he explains.
That’s how he decides the projects he’d like to work on. “Edit Piaf, Charles Aznavour, also Jacques Brel coming very soon… Also sometimes I love the very big challenge and very big show [like] Piaf symphonique, which is the music of Piaf arranged for the orchestra. And we are going to start touring next year — it will be in Carnegie Hall in New York in 2021,” he adds.
For Jules Grison, who plays the titular role, the challenge in paying tribute to the icon lay in learning the words. “I learnt 200 songs to meet the many requests from the public, which are different from one country to another. It’s a big job of memory. You must also know the songs in English, Spanish. You have to do in a few months what Charles took 50 years to do,” he says.
But it’s something he’s greatly enjoyed doing.
Marsalla explains that it took him and Grison only four hours to come up with the details.
“The legendary Charles Aznavour is so in the spirit with us that we find a way to decide to find a way to present [him] in two hours, because we are completely involved with that and we love the music of Charles…so it was very easy. Afterwards of course we have to polish it, but we are so very experienced with musicians and technicians that it should be easy for us to put on the show,” he says.
It is a labour of love and one they hope the audience will share. So come prepared with your list of songs; they’ll bring the musical power.