Édith Piaf would have celebrated her 110th birthday on December 19 and to mark the occasion, The Journal spoke with Nathalie Lermitte who plays the emblematic figure of French song in the show Symphonic Piaf which will stop at Place des Arts from Montreal next January 26.
Of all the times Nathalie Lermitte sang her beloved Édith Piaf, this is the one, impromptu and unique, where she performed Hymn to love in duet with Celine Dion. “It was on television. It wasn’t planned, we had done something improvised. It was very moving,” she says, specifying that the clip of this memorable moment can be found on YouTube.
When we talk about the unforgettable performance of Céline who sang Hymn to love at the top of the Eiffel Tower during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games last July, the artist who has been part of 5 Piaf tribute shows to date declares: “it could only be that! »
« This song is a hymn to life and what connects nations. It could only be her! And then, Édith Piaf herself is a flag. She is like the Eifel Tower, she belongs to the whole world and her songs belong to the people. It’s wonderful that thanks to this great moment and to Céline Dion, everyone is singing Piaf today. I’m delighted,” she explains.
Piaf saved my life
A leading figure in French song, Nathalie Lermitte has established herself as one of the great interpreters of Edith Piaf thanks to her role in Piaf! The Show with which she reached more than a million spectators across 60 countries.
“I always think of Édith Piaf on December 19, but I think of her even more on October 10, the day she left at the age of 47. On October 10, 2013, I sang in Belleville in front of the church where she was baptized. It was a very powerful moment that I will never forget,” explains the interpreter from Picardy, in the north of France.
Nathalie Lermitte says that Édith Piaf “entered her womb and sowed something powerful” in her when she was only 4 years old.
“I had listened White coats and even though I was too young to understand the words, I was shocked,” she recalls.
When a director came to her to ask her to sing Piaf, years later, in 1997, it completely changed her life. “I was going through things at that time and I took Piaf’s sorrows to save me. She literally saved my life,” confides this lover of French song.
photo provided by Christopher Young
The show Piaf Symphonique will present the songs of Edith Piaf in their symphonic and original version, as the great lady did.
“His songs deserve this so much, all these violins. There is such richness in the harmonies! », says the performer who will be accompanied on stage by more than 50 musicians from the Sherbrooke Orchestra.
All under the direction of the Japanese composer, pianist and arranger Nobuyuki Nakajima, known for his work with Jane Birkin and Charles Aznavour who, assures the singer, “respected the substantial marrow of Edith Piaf’s songs”.
-The show Symphonic Piaf will be presented at the Théâtre Maisonneuve at Place des Arts from Montreal on January 26, 2025.
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