#michel berger

[fidjiefidjie]

Bon Matin 💙 🕊🙏😇

Michel Berger 🎶 Le Paradis Blanc

[unknown171204]

Starmania 1979

The French singer, author and composer Michel Berger one day heard about a surprising news item . Patricia Campbell Hearst, the daughter of a billionaire, kidnapped by terrorists ended up joining their movement out of love for one of her kidnappers !

This true story will fascinate him, to the point of starting an album inspired by this story :

This will be the “Angelina Dumas” project .

Ultimately the album never saw the light of day and only one song that remained of Berger's work remained that he recorded as a duet with his wife France Gall :

Frustrated by what he considers to be a failure, Michel will not let go of what he thinks (rightly) is a good artistic vein

thanks to his wife who will make him meet the Canadian singer Diane Dufresne, Michel will work with his lyricist Luc Plamondon with whom he created the most famous rock opera in France :

The story takes place in an undated future (despite a now outdated reference to the year 2000 and the 80s) Humans now live in underground galleries redeveloped into a huge city called Monopolis. The only mirage of happiness for ordinary citizens is the number 1 television show "Starmania" where everyone can become a star for one night .

We simultaneously follow the lives and actions of several characters :

Johnny Rockfort : A young anarchist leader of the terrorist group " les étoiles noires " ( the black stars )

Sadia : A transvestite student co-creator of " les étoiles noires "

Marie Jeanne : The depressed waitress who works at the " Underground café "

Ziggy : A mythomaniac and ambitious homosexual record store owner

Cristal : The host of Starmania

Stella Spotlight : A sex symbol on the decline

Zéro Janvier : An extremist politician running for became president

Gourou Marabout : An extremist politician also competing in the presidential election

Roger-Roger : the TV presenter

Brilliantly the duo Berger / Plamondon went out of their way to organize the broadcast of a special television program in 1978 in order to present the songs to as many people as possible :

The show was performed for a short month for 33 performances at the Palais des Congrès , but it is considered one of the greatest French musicals

DISTRIBUTION :

Daniel Balavoine : Johnny Rockfort

France Gall : Cristal

Fabienne Thibeault : Marie-Jeanne

Étienne Chicot : Zéro Janvier

Diane Dufresne : Stella Spotlight

Grégory Ken : Ziggy

Nanette Workman : Sadia

Roddy Julienne : le Gourou

René Joly : Roger-Roger

Due to his short presence on stage, the show did not have the right to a complete recording (it is today considered a highly sought after lost media) but fortunately the audio of the show has available in its entirety !

To get an idea of ​​the visual identity of the show I had to dig into the TV archives :

The repetitions :

Full live audio of the show :

한국어 자막과 함께 :

Single :

Monopolis / Quand on arrive en ville / Le blues du business man / La complainte de la serveuse automate / Ziggy / Le monde est stone

But the most memorable song is " SOS d'un terrien en détresse "

A song renowned for its difficulty and which launched the career of Daniel Balavoine then, years later, that of Star Academy 2004 winner Grégory Lemarchal :

ANECDOTES :

The original album contains two songs missing from the final show :

Petite Musique terrienne Part 2

L'air de l'extraterrestre

This extraterrestrial is a deleted character who only appeared physically in two production ( Francis Martin in 1980 and Marc Gabriel in 1986 , in this last version we discovered that Roger-Roger was in reality an alien ) the song, or rather its theme, will be recycled in several subsequent versions .

The show also contains several unreleased and missing songs from the album that will never be reused !!

La serveuse et les clients

Jingle de Stella

Sex shops , cinéma porno

Les parents de Cristal

Le tango de l'amour et de la mort

...

Claude Dubois (the original voice of Zéro Janvier) is the only one of the singers present on the album who did not reprise the role on stage, unfortunately it was because of his drug addiction, he took his revenge in 1989 when he replaced Richard Groulx on stage ( thanks to miss-starmania for the archive picture and additional information )

...

Michel Berger abandons his role of Grand Gourou to Roddy Julienne without any explanation ?!

...

In this version, in addition to randomly attacking wealthy people in the street, scratching their cars and raping girls in parking lots, les étoiles noires of 79 are a bit more extreme than in the other versions … Roger Roger specifies that the terrorists deliberately disconnected the oxygen ventilation of an entire neighborhood, killing all the residents ! This free murder will be deleted from other versions

...

The name Johnnie Rockfort (a complicated pun to translate which can mean "strong rock'n'roll " or just the cheese of the same name ? ) is perhaps not a coincidence , the producer of the show Roland Hubert, not being convinced by Balavoine, completely unknown at the time, he fought (in vain) with Berger so that the role was offered to the rocker Johnny Halliday

...

According to the memories of France Gall, during one of the performances a disgruntled spectator had fun whistling throughout the show exhausting Daniel Balavoine who patiently waited for the curtain call to jump into the audience to beat him up while he was still wearing his bulky costume ( the one below )

...

France Gall speaks about the show :

For more Starmania or to discover other French musicals I invite you to follow the path of my main masterlist to learn more about French musicals and their stories :

[itsbarbiebiiittchhhhh]

Françoise Hardy et Michel Berger

[laguinguette]

Michel Berger et France Gall par Jack Garofalo, 1979

[maaarine]

grosse soirée pour les fans de Michel Berger

[doyouknowthismusical]

[starmaniamania]

The Fathers (Jan 21, 2024)

[emilelovesbohort]

For those who don’t understand, I’m referencing « Les petits lolos ».

Search at your own risk.

[whoisinterestedbythis]

Michel Berger Part 2

Out of love for her, Michel will compose musicals where she will always play the main female role. One of these Starmania musicals will become a cult show and still performed today

(Curious about this show ? follow the link below :)

This mutual love at first sight led to a marriage in 1976 and the birth of two children, a girl Pauline then a boy Raphaël

the 80s will be its golden age

he will write his three greatest successes there :

He also stands out for his major participation in charitable works (especially in Africa) which he operates with his wife and his very good friend Daniel Balavoine (met during his Starmania period)

In 1990, he tried to export Starmania to the United States under the name Tycoon and composed a third and final musical comedy "La légende de Jimmy" ( on the life of James Dean) which was a bitter failure .

Unfortunately in 1992 Michel suddenly died in his home of a heart attack during a game of tennis. According to some of his relatives, his death was actually due to the stress of the deterioration of his relationship with his wife, whom he allegedly cheated on for four years with the model Béatrice Grimm

in 1997 His daughter then his wife in 2018 will join him in his last house

[fidjiefidjie]

Bon Matin 💙 🕊🙏 🤗

Michel Berger 🎶 Chanter pour ceux qui sont loin de chez eux

[unknown171204]

Tycoon : An overly ambitious dream

Michel Berger's greatest wish was to export Starmania throughout the world … despite the failure of the German version , an English adaptation and perhaps even performances in Broadway was his ultimate goal ! Berger will travel to New York to record a concept album called " Tycoon " which will later be soberly renamed : "Starmania, English version"

Michel Berger, to ensure a certain success for his new album and to conquer an English-speaking audience that does not know him, will collaborate with great artists of the time : Celine Dion, Cyndi Lauper , Peter Kingsbery etc…

The full album :

Ultimately only the songs : "The world is stone" and "Only The Very Best" will have some success, not enough to consider putting on a big budget show... This English version would only be sung years later and rarely by the 1993 troupe at the Mogador theater .

Clips :

I don't know why, but "Only the very best" had two different clips ?

This failure will be terribly Michel Berger's last project ...

Unfortunately he will join Daniel Balavoine in the stars on August 2 1992 of a heart attack at only 44 years old. Leaving behind one of the greatest French musicals and a deserved place among the greatest French songwriters of the 20th century

For more Starmania or to discover other French musicals I invite you to follow the path of my main masterlist to learn more about French musicals and their stories :

[itsbarbiebiiittchhhhh]

i’m proud to say…. I OWN FRANÇOISE HARDY’S MESSAGE PERSONNEL VINYL !!!! (i don’t have a record player nor space but i’m so happy)

[satinea]

32 ans déjà ✨

[maaarine]

Michel Berger, France Gall — Ça balance pas mal à Paris

[thestateofardadreaming]

Michel Berger - Chanter pour ceux qui sont loin de chez eux (Clip officiel)

Celui-là passe toute la nuit A regarder les étoiles En pensant qu'au bout du monde Y a quelqu'un qui pense à lui

Et cette petite fille qui joue Qui ne veut plus jamais sourire Et qui voit son père partout Qui s'est construit un empire

Où qu'ils aillent Ils sont tristes à la fête Où qu'ils aillent Ils sont seuls dans leur tête

(Refrain:) Je veux chanter pour ceux Qui sont loin de chez eux Et qui ont dans leurs yeux Quelque chose qui fait mal Qui fait mal Je veux chanter pour ceux Qu’on oublie peu à peu Et qui gardent au fond d’eux Quelque chose qui fait mal Qui fait mal

Qui a volé leur histoire? Qui a volé leur mémoire? Qui a piétiné leur vie Comme on marche sur un miroir? Celui-là voudra des bombes Celui-là comptera les jours En alignant des bâtons Comme les barreaux d’une prison Où qu’ils aillent Ils sont tristes à la fête Où qu’ils aillent Ils sont seuls dans leur t��te

(Refrain)

Quand je pense à eux Ça fait mal ça fait mal Quand je pense à eux Ça fait mal ça fait mal

[starmaniamania]

France Gall and Michel Berger during the '79 Starmania rehearsals