Aznavour in Quebec

Aznavour Bids Farewell to Canada!

Quebec 

10/11/1999 - 

When news spread that Charles Aznavour had been involved in a car crash on 13 October, the singer's Quebecois fans were devastated, believing that the accident would mean the cancellation of Aznavour's shows at the Grand Théâtre de Québec (on 4 and 6 November). But the French-Armenian star is a born survivor and neither his accident nor his age - 75 this year! - could stop Aznavour coming to Quebec. Indeed, the singer's final Canadian tour proved to be a memorable sell-out occasion. Aznavour Bids Farewell to Canada!

Charles Aznavour appears to have an extraordinary amount of energy for a man his age. The indefatigable singer is due to perform a two-month run at the Palais des Congrès in Paris in October 2000, as a prelude to an extensive international tour which is being billed as the last of his career! However, this does not mean that the French-Armenian star is about to slip quietly into retirement. Far from it - Aznavour's schedule appears to be more hectic than ever!

Besides performing his "farewell" world tour, Aznavour will also head off to Plymouth in the UK next February to star in a stage musical based on the life of the French painter Toulouse-Lautrec. Aznavour, who is also known for his acting work, is also due to appear in a play and a number of TV series over the coming months. In fact, Monsieur Aznavour appears to be totally booked up right through until 2002. He certainly won't regret his decision to call an end to his touring days - although fans should not be too worried, Aznavour has announced that he will continue performing special one-off dates!

Given the announcement that Aznavour's touring days will soon be over, it was not surprising that the singer's final tour in Canada proved to be such a huge success. This time round Aznavour chose to present an almost exclusively French repertoire in Quebec. The singer appears to have learnt his lesson after performing a bilingual show in Montreal in 1986, which went down extremely badly with French-speaking audiences. Aznavour made a point of dropping the English numbers from his Quebec concerts this year - although, understandably, he remains confused as to why Céline Dion is allowed to sing in English and he is not! On the singer's final concert tour in Canada audiences in Ottawa and Toronto got to hear the legendary Aznavour hit "She" - a pleasure which was denied fans in Quebec. (It seems a great shame to us that the language sensitivity of the minority should deprive the rest of the audience of Aznavour's songs in English, which were, in fact, just as important in his career as his French work!
However, in spite of certain holes in his repertoire, Aznavour's concerts at Quebec's Grand Théâtre more than lived up to expectations. In fact, the shows proved to be a phenomenal success. Aznavour's Quebecois fans certainly seemed to enjoy rediscovering a singer who still performs his songs the same way he did at the beginning of his career. This has become the cornerstone of Aznavour's philosophy: ''I may renew myself through the lyrics or by making a different selection of songs for a show," the singer says, "but the manner in which I perform my songs always stays exactly the same. I know I'd disappoint my fans if I started acting differently on stage.''

And it's true that when you go to an Aznavour concert you go to watch as much as to listen! "La Bohême" would certainly never be the same without those special on-stage gestures. And maybe this is why Aznavour's audiences have never grown tired of listening to classics like "Je me voyais déjà en haut de l'affiche". But what about Aznavour himself? Doesn't he get bored of singing the same old songs after countless tours in 90 different countries?

Well, it appears that the singer has a secret which he discovered a few years ago after a marathon series of concerts in Russia. When Aznavour last performed in Moscow it was still the bad old days - the days of no jukeboxes and no albums in the shops - so a concert was the only opportunity music fans had to listen to the same song over and over again! Aznavour thus found himself in the bizarre position of performing some of his classic hits four or five times in a row. The singer's concerts in Moscow, which had been rehearsed as sets of 16 songs turned into marathon performances, Aznavour singing up to 70 songs in one evening! Which turned out to be perfect training in how to keep the emotion of his popular classics alive.

Aznavour was certainly on top form for his two concerts in Quebec, putting such energy and emotion into his songs that the shows left a truly memorable impression on the audience. Interestingly enough, more than a third of the audience who attended Aznavour's shows in Quebec were made up of young music fans. Proof - if any were needed - that Charles Aznavour is in no danger of going out of fashion in the near future!

Pascal Evans

Translation : Julie  Street