As Leonard Cohen could do in another register, Auteuil declaims his verses filled with emotion and his songs which tell stories that he embodies on stage like the man of the theater that he is first and foremost.
We also feel him very comfortable from the start to perform the pieces from the two albums he has launched since 2021, pieces which he knows very well are less known than the numerous films which mark his career more than half a century.
Good company
Always smiling and sometimes performing a few little dance steps, we feel that Auteuil takes great pleasure in this second job. (Jocelyn Riendeau/Le Soleil)
“If someone asked me why, I who hate flying, why I spent seven hours trembling between Roissy and Montreal, it is to give you back all the emotions that your singers made me experience since I was a little boy!” launched a sincere Auteuil as a welcome after starting the evening with Inconsolablesupported by the superb voice of multi-instrumentalist Julie Gomel.
Because it must be said, the 74-year-old artist has surrounded himself very well musically with Gomel, who alternates between the piano and the ukulele, his good friend Colin Russeil, who moves from drums to keyboards, as well as Philippe Almosnino and Arman Méliès on bass and guitar. The table was set for a beautiful evening of poetry and stories set to music.
Love of the stage
And Auteuil also likes to communicate with the public, to whom he will then tell the genesis of his love of the stage, when he was 4 years old and he played in Madame Butterfly with his parents in Algiers. “That evening the journey began with you!” he said before interpreting Saigonone of the many poems by Paul-Jean Toulet that he set to music in 2021.
It is then Walk to the Moon by Alfred de Musset which he will interpret, a poem that Georges Brassens had also set to music but of which Auteuil boasted of having made a slightly more rhythmic version.
Then, the artist recounts his trip to Lac-Saint-Jean for the filming of the film The Widow of Saint-Pierre. He then winks at Beau Dommage before performing If you’re afraid, don’t be afraid of love joking that he had sung it when he met a very sad seal in Quebec because his girlfriend had gone to spin balloons on his nose…
And he continues with Small cutsa piece composed following a real heartbreak, that of his son Zachary, who also accompanies him on this trip to Quebec.
Throughout the show, we not only sense the artist at ease on stage, but we see that he takes enormous pleasure in this second job. Always smiling, supporting his words and verses with his gestures and even performing a few small dance steps, it is a contagious energy that he transmits through his songs.
The man of the theater that Auteuil knows how to tell and stage with gestures and emotion the stories he has written and set to music. (Jocelyn Riendeau/Le Soleil)
Stories
The director that he is also knows very well how to bring the public to the heart of the stories that he has written and that he presents to them, like that of this young man who does not wish to take over the family farm and who leaves his parents in the ‘moving Sorry Sorry, after which a lady spontaneously shouted “Thank you, Monsieur Auteuil!”. Or the story of this unknown son who comes to introduce himself to his father after the death of his mother in Rose’s son.
Auteuil will leave the stage after The same tears, the story of a former friend who had also loved his wife, and Josephbut to better return with If you had known me.
“This is the moment you’ve all been waiting for because I’m going to perform my hit for you!” he says, joking, before performing the title song from his first album. To all honor, he will then end the evening with If you want me to love againa poignant work by Voltaire that he set to music.
