More than two hours of show, about sixty songs, paintings which follow one another at a frantic pace ... At 37, for his new show, Michaël Gregorio, does not play the card of the economy.
In “The Odyssey of the Voice”, the imitator renews himself, sings both Aya Nakamura and A-ha, turns into a rocker, a crooner, a guitarist, offers very inspired videos on the theme of cinema, scrolls through artists and musical genres like a virtuoso voice juggler.
Hard to believe that a year ago, he was undergoing surgery for a serious problem with his vocal cords.
Confessions before his dates at the Casino de Paris.
What flavor does this return on stage have?
MICHAËL GREGORIO.
Oh la la, that feels good!
We created the show in early 2020, we played two or three times, boom, it stopped.
We resumed in September, the flower with the gun, boom, it stopped again.
We thought to restart in December, and then no.
Having a show called
“
The Odyssey” and having a hard time getting started is a little weird.
In the middle of the show, there is this revelation: You just had vocal cord surgery.
What happened ?
I had a small hemorrhage the evening of the premiere, in February 2020 in Péronne
(Somme)
.
I had worked 300 songs for the creation of the show and I was leaving a training to work the saturated voice.
Fatigue, stress, training, laryngitis on the day of the sound adjustments, in short, lots of little things ... At the start of the show, I force a little with the desire to send the ball and, voila ... My pianist me. said:
Like in video games, I saw your gauge drop suddenly
.
There was 2h20 of show left!
I did what I could, I held on to the energy.
The Odyssey of the Voice on tour and at the Casino de Paris from October 28 to December 4 🚀✨ I promise I'll be less hairy on stage! #HomoGregorioSapiens
Ticket office: https: //t.co/sTQt0Qm6jE pic.twitter.com/VaOBuakjDq
- Michael Gregorio (@gregoriomichael) October 13, 2021
Diagnostic ?
Laryngeal whiplash.
It had happened to me before, but not so hard.
I continued a few dates and, with the confinement, I told myself that we would be able to rest all that.
But we discovered that there were other problems.
Polyps, nodules… The more it went, the more I was told about the operation.
At first, I really didn't want to.
Because of the risk involved?
I was not afraid of losing my speaking voice, I suspected that I could sing again, but I did not know to what extent I was going to regain its elasticity.
I was trying to be, it's a buzzword, “resilient”.
It was very strange, there was already the surreal atmosphere of confinement, this energy suddenly cut off.
At the beginning, I wanted to find other more or less Cartesian solutions, I did everything, alternative medicine, ask up there
(he points to the sky)
...
But that did not work.
If, a little, we still reduced the size of the machine, which is good for the scar.
When did you have the operation?
In June 2020. Through mutual friends, I was able to discuss with artists who have known this like Hélène Ségara or Natalie Dessay.
It reassured me a lot.
There were a few complications, the doctors struggled a bit, I also had to rehabilitate the language, but I don't regret it.
I did not get the voice back as it was, but I won something else.
"Everyone around me thinks I'm too careful"
Michael Gregorio
After the operation, you were prohibited from speaking.
It was strict, for ten days it was even necessary to avoid sneezing, coughing ... I had a notebook in which I wrote down everything to communicate.
After a week, when the doctors said to me:
Go ahead, talk
, I felt like I was walking on eggshells.
Are you still in pain?
No, it healed very well.
There are discomforts, fatigue, a lack of flexibility, of ease, you have to be a little more concentrated.
There, I will really find out how my voice will hold up over time for the first time since the operation.
There are things that I can do less: I had worked on Led Zeppelin, for example, there for the moment, it is complicated.
Before this incident, you had already planned a new number… silent.
Crazy coincidence, right?
I'm a fan of Charlie Chaplin, of Buster Keaton.
Very quickly, in the development of the show, we said to ourselves that it would be funny if there was a false loss of voice on stage by doing too much.
I wanted to talk about its fragility.
Everyone around me finds that I am too careful: when I am on tour, I do not drink alcohol, or very little, I try to sleep well, I hydrate myself ...
Like a top athlete?
I only compete with myself, so it's less demanding, but yes, there are things that are related.
Vocally, the show is demanding, people have the impression that it is easy… but it is not!
Michaël Gregorio in 2017 on the AccorHotels Arena stage.
LP / Jean Nicholas Guillo
How did your donation appear?
It's very instinctive, like hypersensitivity to sounds.
I became aware of it in the theater.
We played a Brecht in high school, I played a surgeon, I was 16 but I was given 12. And there, I realized that I could have countenance thanks to the voice.
There were predispositions, and then I worked on all that.
In the show, you unwind the soundtrack of your youth.
The idea was to show the voices that make my voice.
In truth, we are all imitators, all sponges, we have the accent of our regions, our friends, our parents.
It is by imitating that we learn to speak, to play an instrument.
This is how we develop.
New show necessarily rhymes with new voices?
I don't want novelty for novelty.
Yes, there are new voices: Soprano, Clara Luciani, singer of the Cranberries, Michel Legrand… But it is above all a pretext to generate new emotions, new energies.
EDITOR'S RATING: 4/5
“The Odyssey of the Voice”,
from October 28 to December 4 at the Casino de Paris (Paris IXe), then on tour.
From 26 euros.
