Michel Polnareff is once again making the event at the end of 2022. The pianist and singer has sacrificed to the exercise of the solo album on the piano, and we can say that this is good news for his songs. , which we have heard abused too much by himself and overly demonstrative musicians.
The release of the disc allowed him to return to France after seven long years of absence.
La Deux rolled out the red carpet for him with this program lazily titled “The Evening Event”.
With a triple mission: to narrate the extraordinary journey of this great original, to hear him sing and also to discover his hits covered by other performers.
Shirtless under his golden jacket
Grandiloquence and megalomania are of course at the heart of the device: Michel Polnareff made it the weapons of his career, marked by the blows of brilliance.
But those would be nothing without the songs themselves.
We measure it even better by noting the difficulty of hearing them interpreted by others.
Marc Lavoine is simply off the mark in
Radio
, Patrick Bruel rather lackluster on
Who Killed Grandma
, Nolwenn Leroy does too much on
Holidays
.
Only the great Catherine Ringer gets away with the honors and her version of
Love Me, Please Love Me
, skillfully adapted as
Love Him, Please Love Him
, in which she plays with the composer of the title, who listens to her, flabbergasted by her audacity.
It is strange to see Michel Polnareff as a spectator of the brave people who dared to sing his titles in front of him.
But the man, shirtless under his golden jacket, glasses screwed on his nose, does it with good grace.
Supernatural range
Of course, Polnareff, alone at the piano, sings some himself.
Only?
Not quite.
Thanks to technology, he can be heard dueting with a younger version of himself, on the iconic
Lettre à France
and
Goodbye Marylou
.
The overview is not limited to standards from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but also to more recent titles.
Thus Chimène Badi covers
Grandis pas
, a piece taken from the latest album by Michel Polnareff,
Finally!,
released in 2018. Because it is women who are the fairest when they sing Polnareff.
Perhaps because of the supernatural height of its range, more accessible to female singers.
Years ago, Claire Diterzi proved it during a performance at the Francofolies in La Rochelle.
All confirm it in this evening, where the men are struggling.
Isn't it Amir, whose version of
The Doll that makes no
sorely lacking in relevance?
Bilal Hassani and his exacerbated femininity constitute a magnificent counter-example, with a beautiful reading of
Dans la rue
.
Eccentric
What if you had to be as eccentric as Michel to live up to Polnareff?
This show is proof of that.
Michel Denisot's voiceover, which places Polnareff's repertoire in the context of his biography and the history of French society since 1966, seriously lacks tone.
The Droopy side of the animator does not adapt well to the exercise, in which Antoine de Caunes would have been brilliant.
The behind-the-scenes meetings between Polnareff and his various admirers are quite touching, especially with the young Apple, who is wearing a very short haircut for the occasion.
Sincere in her admiration and almost candid in her approach, the young woman brings all her grace to
On ira tous au paradis,
a few moments later.
Because Michel Polnareff can also be enjoyed without decorum or second degree.
