Of course, Roberto Alagna has already given voice to an audience in Seine-Saint-Denis.
It was in the 1980s, at a time when the child of Clichy-sous-Bois was not yet the tenor who would take to the biggest stages in the world.
"I sang in cafes or on vacant lots," recalls the Franco-Italian artist, whose latest album entitled "Le Chanteur" is a tribute to "the great French song".
This Thursday, Roberto Alagna will perform as part of the Saint-Denis festival in the basilica.
There he will perform opera arias and sacred songs in front of several hundred people.
The performance of "Carmen", the opera he was to play last September at the Stade de France alongside his wife Aleksandra Kurzak, has been postponed to June 18… 2022. The necropolis of the kings of France will therefore be the stage for her first concert in her department of birth.
"It's a kind of apotheosis", confides the person concerned.
A word that takes on its full meaning in such a setting.
What does it represent for the child of Seine-Saint-Denis that you are to perform for the first time in your department?
“It’s something magnificent.
I think back to all my childhood friends, North Africans, Portuguese, who went to see me at the cinema in Tosca (
Editor's note: a film by Benoît Jacquot released in 2001
) and who called me during the session.
We were teenagers, and one of us will be singing at the Saint-Denis basilica.
Carmen, next year, will also be an opportunity to bring opera to as many people as possible, through a popular work.
It's a beautiful project, in a stadium in France that I compare to a modern Roman amphitheater.
What memories do you keep of your childhood in the department?
I was born in Clichy-sous-Bois, where I lived until the start of my career and where my parents still live.
The school was 100 meters from the family pavilion.
It was a small village, rather quiet.
Everyone knew each other and when I come back, everyone knows me.
There were a lot of foreigners but we were far from the cities, even if we were going to play there with friends from college and high school.
The hardest part is that there were no structures to have fun in Clichy.
The only hobbies were soccer or foosball games in cafes.
How do you spend football matches with friends at the opera?
In my family, everyone played an instrument or sang. My father sang all the time at home. On Sundays, we took up the traditional songs of the country or those from the charts. On my mother's side, we leaned towards the opera. My great-grandfather knew Caruso. I have always balanced between these two influences. When I performed in cabarets, I was told that I was singing too loud. My voice was more powerful than the others. Raphaël Ruiz, my singing teacher, taught me that I was a tenor. Tenor, that had something divine to me. He then ordered me to work on my voice. Sometimes, in the middle of a baby party, I had to go to Paris to go take lessons. My friends would say to me:
Come on, hi, operetta!
You still live in Seine-Saint-Denis.
How have you lived in recent months, between confinement and an abrupt end to concerts and cultural shows?
It's a tough time for the soloists, who didn't get any help.
I am one of those who can complain the least.
Personally, it gave me a taste of a normal life that I had never known.
My wife was in Poland and I in France.
I would go shopping or take my daughter to school, which I had never done before.
Somehow I was afraid of this life.
I found that the simplicity was nice.
I made the decision to go to theaters less in the future.
