New Year's Eve In Paris

 I attended a new years concert at Disney Hall featuring the singing talents of Belinda Carlisle and Rufus Wainwright. Carlisle’s songs were for the most part, from her new album “Voila”, her first new album in a decade, featuring songs renowned classic French songsmiths like Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Brel, and Edith Piaf. She is better known as a pop diva with the Go-Go but she claims France as her spiritual home. Well her years of study have paid off. Showing a deep connection to the emotional and artistic requirements of the music she surprised and ultimately thrilled the audience with her singing.

Rufus Wainwright is another case. I had first seen him at the Hollywood Bowl last summer recreating Judy Garland’s famous Hollywood Bowl concert which itself had been a followed on the even more famous 1961 concert at Carnegie Hall, He had recreated the Carnegie Hall concert in Carnegie Hall to great acclaim but had a more difficult time with the Hollywood Bowl concert. His voice, at times, seemed strained, and he seemed nervous: understandable, given the immense outdoor venue and challenge of a cold evening in the open air. I wanted to hear him again in an indoor and smaller venue. He is from Quebec so French material is not foreign to him and he did some wonderful songs including a song his mother sang to him as a child. But again his manner seemed a bit offhand and unprepared, which can be endearing but finally is irritating. He has a lovely voice but doesn’t have much dynamic range and his tendency is to hit a high note and hold it, even wailing it. His voice is pleasant but I yearned for more dynamism. It should be noted he is also famous as a composer and actor. So he is a bona fide triple threat and has a huge following.

The concert was a short one hour and twenty minutes and there were some terrific orchestral arrangements by Dave Palmer on piano and keyboard, His musicians were excellent, particularly Fabrice Martinez on violin and Jean-Paul Monsche on accordion. Timothy Young provided guitars, Reggie Hamilton acoustic bass, and Jay Bellerose on drums.