“Life in real life (with Anne Sylvestre)”, stories of women through time

Marie Fortuit and Lucie Sansen pay tribute to the singer who died in 2020 at the age of 86 in a musical show that connects several generations of women.

Anne Sylvestre’s repertoire goes well beyond that of children’s songs, the famous fabulettes. Four years after her death, the committed singer inspires the young generation of today’s female artists who discovered her late in life. In the 70s, the song Sisters was taken up like an anthem in MLF demonstrations. 50 years later, musician Lucie Sansen and director Marie Fortuit link this story to theirs.

In the room, the songs of Anne Sylvestre bring together several generations of women, explains Marie Fortuit : “Douce maison is a song written in 1978 which tells of a rape through the metaphor of the burglary of a house. We feel to what extent the public, when they understand for themselves what is being discussed from a political point of view , is much more involved in the struggle. What touches me is to forge this link between generations which is so necessary today.

“When we sing ‘People Who Doubt’ with the audience, we celebrate vulnerability as strength.”

Marie Fortuit director

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Between the songs, archives, like an extract from Fluoroscopy by Jacques Chancel on France Inter, where the journalist takes the liberty of telling Anne Sylvestre that she is very aggressive : banal misogyny of the time. Texts, such as Lwitch’s complex by Isabelle Sorente. A show that sublimates the fighting poetry of Anne Sylvestre, Lucie Sansen took care of the arrangements : “I wanted, for each song, to start from the text. There are a multitude of possibilities on the piano to feel the impulses, to let the song breathe, that’s all the pleasure of accompanying the song.”