Culture: the musical "Starmania" is making a comeback at the Seine Musicale

Marie Gicquel, with AFP 7:54 p.m., November 08, 2022

"Youth, audacity, insolence, it's timeless": this is how Thomas Jolly, director of the 2022 version of

, talks about this visionary rock opera in the presence of one of the creators, Luc Plamondon, with a mischievous look behind his dark glasses.

"In 1979, at the time of the first performances, it was a dystopia but reality joined this fiction", unfolds for AFP Thomas Jolly, one of the most inventive French directors of the last decade.

The 40-year-old will soon go from the star on the

poster to the rings, being in charge of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics in 2024.

Return of hits that marked several generations

Until then, it's another marathon he's launching with the return of the hits

,

,

or

.

Which resonate at La Seine Musicale at the gates of Paris, then on tour in France, Belgium and Switzerland next year.

More than 40 years ago, strangers (like the current cast) named Daniel Balavoine or Fabienne Thibeault gave life to these hymns that have stood the test of time, created by Luc Plamondon, Quebec lyricist, and Michel Berger (disappeared in 1992), architect of the French variety.

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- These anecdotes that you (perhaps) do not know about "Starmania"

The question of the relevance of a new version of "Starmania" in 2022 does not arise.

"

was about things that didn't exist then but have arrived, such as continuous news, programs to become stars, attacks like those of September 11, 2001 and political strategies with a people side, like Donald and Melania Trump “, develops Thomas Jolly.

Gender and sexuality issues

Not to mention non-binary characters, when that expression didn't even appear over 40 years ago.

"Issues of gender and sexuality, for example, which have been present since the origin of

, with the characters of Ziggy or Sadia, have infused society as a whole today", notes moreover in the file of press Raphaël Hamburger, son of Michel Berger and France Gall (disappeared in 2018), involved in the project.

"It's the first time I've worked with the author of a work, I haven't had this chance with Shakespeare or Seneca (smiles), so we're going to ask him how he saw it all," says Thomas. Jolly turning to Plamondon, all in rock'n'roll attitude at 80 years old, glasses and black clothes.

"Sometimes I sit at the back of the room and I say to myself: 'Ah, I wrote that too'", laughs the lyricist.

He will just concede, pushed by Jolly, that trips to London and San Francisco, when these cities were only cultural ferment in the 1960s/70s, sharpened his vision.

A very contemporary echo

His

characters find a very contemporary echo.

Like Zéro Janvier, the richest man in the world, greedy for power, tempted by extremism, who wants to close the borders.

Or Gourou Marabout, fundamentalist of ecology.

But, modest, Plamondon, diverts the conversation towards anecdotes.

"One evening when there were a lot of people in a villa in Antibes, Michel Berger said to me: 'What is that?', taking one of my sheets from me. There was only four verses for + One against the other + He finds music in half an hour, and comes back: 'Find the other lyrics, finish!'

(laughs)".

Berger will propose the song to Diane Dufresne, who will leave her a note at her hotel: "Diane Dufresne does not sing slow".

Fabienne Thibeault will appropriate it.

In

, she plays Marie-Jeanne (nickname for a soft drug).

"Fabienne smoked joints, even with the firefighters in the room", rebounds Plamondon by association of ideas.

He becomes more serious - and moving - when he narrates the previews of the 2022 version. impression that I only made rhymes".