Updated yesterday at 8:00 am.
Mireille Mathieu's visits to Quebec in the early 1980s were not discreet. It was common for her to perform half a dozen evenings at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier on the Place des Arts, which seats nearly 3,000. It wasn't its rarity that drew crowds – by the late 1970s it crossed the ocean almost every year – 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 weren't played and his face – as well as his iconic hairstyle – was known to many children who weren't his target audience.
PHOTO PAUL-HENRI TALBOT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Jean-Pierre Ferland, Mireille Mathieu and Johny Stark in 1970. Ferland and the French singer have already sung A Little Further as a duet. “He toured with us to France,” Mireille Mathieu also recalled in an interview this week.
PHOTO PIERRE MCCANN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Mireille Mathieu on an unknown date
PHOTO PIERRE CÔTÉ, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Mireille Mathieu had her habits in Quebec in the 1970s and early 1980s. We see her here with Guy Lafleur in 1975.
PHOTO ARMAND, TROTTIER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Mireille Mathieu and Jean Garon, then ministers in René Lévesque's government, visited the Olympic Stadium in 1980
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What is even more surprising is that this Saturday, Mireille Mathieu presents her first singing tour in Quebec in more than 35 years. What explains this long absence?
The now 77-year-old lady alternately talks about the numerous tours around the world, the records she recorded and finally about the sudden death of her manager Johnny Stark in 1989.
“When he died, of course I stopped… I did something else,” she corrects herself. Mireille Mathieu didn't stop singing, but her French career lost some momentum. She made an album in Spanish, then others in German, toured China and the USSR… Nowadays it is difficult to estimate what an international career could mean for certain French artists of the 1960s.
Homage to Piaf
In the coming days, Mireille Mathieu will return to her sources. Her singing tour, which focuses on her major successes, will include two songs by Piaf, to whom she just dedicated another album. “I wanted to pay tribute to her,” she said, specifying that 2023 marks the 60th anniversary of the death of the girl we called La Môme. She never forgot that with one of her songs she won the singing competition in 1964, which marked the beginning of her career.
PHOTO ANTOINE DÉSILETS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Mireille Mathieu in 1970
“I also composed a melody to pay homage to her, the lady in the black dress,” she continues, praising Claude Lemesle’s lyrics. Mireille Mathieu is aware that in her early days she was compared to Piaf: her phrasing and the way she rolled the R's actually resembled that of her famous ancestor.
Excerpt from Acropolis Farewell by Mireille Mathieu
However, if the tremolo remained, his singing developed over time. She has put her voice in particular on Mediterranean melodies (borrowed in particular from Greece, and not only for Acropolis adieu) and also adaptations of hits by ABBA (Bravo tu as rien, recently covered by Clara Luciani) and Barbra Streisand (Memory and Woman in Love) . In this last piece, which we will probably hear again on stage, she shows all the sophisticated power of her voice.
In a sign of gratitude
Mireille Mathieu spoke quickly and was bright-eyed when we met her the day after she arrived in Quebec. She remembered with joy her collaborations with Eddie Marnay, Francis Lai, Paul Anka, Maurice Jarre and Michel Legrand. She spoke about her tours in China and Eastern Europe, where she has been frequently since her first tour in the USSR in the late 1960s.
The French-produced star, to use the title of one of his albums, sang almost everywhere and in a dozen languages, but never broke through into the American market.
This is not a regret, assures the lady, who has nevertheless sung several times in large concert halls in the USA.
“I was able to sing a few tunes 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, although she is aware that she is one went through a time in which… It was possible to be recognized outside your own country without having to adopt the language of another cultural power, like Céline Dion, for example.
We feel that she is a grateful artist who has been able to count on a loyal audience that will take to the stages of Quebec in the coming days. An audience that loves sentimental ballads. “My message to myself,” she said, “is feelings. »
Concert on Saturday and Sunday at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, then on the 20th in Quebec and on the 23rd in Sherbrooke.