The happy return of Mireille Mathieu | The Press

Queen of French variety and sentimental songs, Mireille Mathieu returns to Quebec after 35 years of absence on stage. She promises to sing the songs that her admirers are waiting for in Montreal, Quebec and Sherbrooke.

Mireille Mathieu’s visits to Quebec were not discreet at the turn of the 1980s. It was common for her to perform half a dozen evenings at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at Place des Arts, which has almost 3,000 seats. It was not its rarity that attracted crowds – it crossed the ocean almost every year in the late 1970s – but its immense popularity.

Mireille Mathieu’s career is indeed crowned with success: she sold tens of millions of albums and sang in several languages, like the other great polyglot idol of the time, Nana Mouskouri (who will also be in Quebec later this year). His songs reached homes where his records were not played and his face – like his iconic hairstyle – was known to many children who were not his target audience.

Which makes the following thing all the more surprising: this Saturday, Mireille Mathieu will present her first singing tour in Quebec in more than 35 years. What explains this long absence?

The lady, now aged 77, talks in turn about the numerous tours around the world, the records she recorded and finally the sudden death, in 1989, of her manager, Johnny Stark.

“When he died, obviously, I stopped… I did something else,” she corrects herself. Mireille Mathieu did not stop singing, but her French career lost a little steam. She made an album in Spanish, then others in German, toured China and the USSR… It is difficult to measure, nowadays, what having an international career could mean at the time for certain French artists from the 1960s.

Tribute to Piaf

In the coming days, Mireille Mathieu will go back to her sources. Her singing tour, focused on her great successes, will include two songs by Piaf, to whom she has just dedicated another album. “I wanted to pay tribute to him,” she said, specifying that 2023 marked the 60^e anniversary of the death of the one we called La Môme. She never forgot that it was with one of her songs that she won, in 1964, the singing competition that would launch her career.

“I also composed a melody to pay homage to him, The lady in the black dress », she continues, praising the text by Claude Lemesle. Mireille Mathieu is well aware that she was compared to Piaf in her early days: her phrasing and her way of rolling the r’s resembled those of her illustrious elder, in fact.

However, if the tremolo has remained, its song has unfolded over time. She notably placed her voice on Mediterranean tunes (borrowing from Greece, in particular, and not only for Acropolis farewell) and also brought into French adaptations of ABBA hits (well done you wonrecently covered by Clara Luciani) and Barbra Streisand (Memory And Woman in Love). On this last piece, which we expect to hear again on stage, she shows all the refined power of her voice.

Under the sign of gratitude

Mireille Mathieu was quick-spoken and bright-eyed when we met her, the day after her arrival in Quebec. She recalled with joy her collaborations with Eddie Marnay, Francis Lai, Paul Anka, Maurice Jarre and Michel Legrand. She spoke of her tours in China and Eastern Europe, where she has been frequently since her first tour in the USSR in the late 1960s.

The star made in Franceto use the title of one of his albums, sang almost everywhere, in a dozen languages, but never broke into the American market.

It’s not a regret, assures the lady, who has nevertheless sung a few times in large venues in the United States.

“I was able to sing a few melodies in English in my own way, to make myself known, but when I go to a foreign country, I am a French singer,” she insists, while being aware of having gone through an era where it was possible to be recognized outside one’s country without having to, like Celine Dion for example, adopt the language of another cultural power.

We sense that she is a grateful artist to have been able to count on a loyal audience who will be hitting Quebec stages in the coming days. A public fond of sentimental ballads. “My message to me,” she said, “is feelings. »

In concert Saturday and Sunday at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier then in Quebec on the 20th and in Sherbrooke on the 23rd.