Let’s face it, it started off badly. Very good idea to start the evening with Two golden women that you never hear in a Charlebois concert. The problem is that we had a hard time hearing the singer lost in the theme of Claude Fournier’s film. And it was hardly better with Mount Athos (text by Marcel Sabourin) that followed. A classic problem – no pun intended – on a premiere night. It will be corrected on Friday. Worse, Charlebois forgot the words during the next song, Dying young (text by Gilles Vigneault).
“A Vigneault song without a memory gap, that can’t be possible. I did it on purpose,” he said to exonerate himself.
We understand it a little. From the spectator’s point of view, attending a Charlebois concert without seeing him play the guitar, without hearing the heavy sound of the drums and without taking a seat at the piano – except once – is quite disconcerting. Imagine in his place…
Then, April on Mars has arrived…
“If I’m wrong about this one, I’ll kill the cat.”
The cat had nothing to fear. Suddenly, it was as if the singer, the orchestra and the choir had found common ground. The balance and complementarity were there and the Charlebois monument suddenly seemed to be taken from a science fiction film shot in Technicolor.
Formidable Rose
Even though that was all he had to do, Charlebois was not the only one singing in this enterprise. There was the choir, but also the contralto Rose Naggar-Tremblay and the tenor Frédéric Antoun. The former came to join Charlebois for Sensationthe poem by Arthur Rimbaud set to music by the author-composer and Luc Morin in 1969, for the disc Québec Love.
Performed alternately and as a duet, the offering hit the mark and demonstrated possibilities not seen until then in this show. Happy in love?with all the singers and instrumentalists, continued in the same vein, confirming the uniqueness of the ensemble.
That’s when the electroshock came, when Charlebois and Naggar-Tremblay exulted during Madame Bertrand. Seriously… Hearing a singer make her own the lines of the title character worthy of a Michel Tremblay novel was as amazing as it was enjoyable.
