Among the talents of the last season of the telecrochet “The Voice”, broadcast this Saturday on TF1, an original and surprising duo is part of the adventure. One of the two singers, Maryline Dumont, is from Montauban.
Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your duo Canta diva?
My name is Maryline Dumont, I am a singer-songwriter. I am 40 years old, I was born in Montauban. I spent my childhood in Tarn-et-Garonne then Lot. I come back from time to time to sing, as in 2006, when I performed on the stage of the Olympe-de-Gouge theater. Recently I have been living in Marseille. I met Stéphanie Portelli, my partner, about ten years ago at the Marseille Conservatory. We wanted to sing together for a long time but it was only last year that we decided to start our duo, which is called, Canta Diva. It is a lyrical duo but which wants to create bridges with other musical styles such as jazz or pop.
Who had the idea to participate in the television show?
It’s me. (laughs) I said to myself “Hey, that would be nice to do this show”. We never had the idea of doing it alone each on our side. Perhaps for lack of courage because it is something quite intense and stressful. But we wanted to show our duo in the open and “The Voice” was a great highlight.
We signed up thinking they wouldn’t answer us. And 15 minutes later, we had a phone call from the production to do the first auditions.
What do you think appealed to the jury?
We had sent our application in classical mode with very lyrical extracts and then we proposed to the production to do something that mixed genres: classical music and more current music such as pop, jazz. I always needed to do classical for its intensity and the emotions that it brings while wanting to sing in a much softer, softer way, and to write my own songs.
You can’t give the result of the show, but do you still have an anecdote to share?
What I can tell you is that we really enjoyed participating in this show. Everyone was kind. It allowed us to test ourselves and see how we reacted to a time of such intense stress and excitement. What’s great is that we both got to experience it together. It was the first scene and the first television for the duo.
Do you still have family in the department? Are they going to watch the show on Saturday?
Yes I still have my cousins and my grandmother. I think everyone is impatiently awaiting our visit, and so are we, because we don’t know at all the portrait that there will be of us! It’s going to be very funny.
What are you expecting from this adventure?
We hope that the public will appreciate our proposal and that we can then tour with this duo, when the health situation allows. In any case, it was a real breath to participate in this show in front of an audience. Even though it was only a few people, it was already huge. We can’t wait to meet the public again! We miss it.
Maybe it will also allow people who are not used to the classical world to see that it is an accessible universe, that it is not as elitist as it may seem. We do not know at all how people will perceive it but we hope that they will want to find out about it.
–
