Paris in a Glass: Taylor Wilson sings Piaf
Stockbridge Church - 19/03/24
Taylor Wilson, mezzo-soprano | Karen MacIver, piano/musical director
Taylor Wilson’s ‘Paris in a Glass’ has brought in the crowds for the second concert of Stockbridge Music Hub’s French Week. Wine and macarons are provided to put us in the mood for Taylor and pianist, Karen Macivor’s arrangements of songs by Édith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, and others who sang about Paris.
Taylor, who says later that she could never impersonate Piaf, as she’s a foot too tall, wears a Dietrich-inspired black trouser suit, and singing with fixed microphone, begins with Piaf’s 1959 song ‘Milord.’ It’s a spirited rendition, with clear French diction, but wisely there’s no attempt to capture the timbre of Piaf’s voice, nor her trademark flexible rhythm. Throughout the concert Taylor uses her exciting lower register to bring this repertoire to life, appropriately in Marlene Dietrich’s German version of ‘Falling in Love’ again. Dietrich, a staunch anti-fascist, became Piaf’s friend during visits to Paris in the 1940s.
Karen MacIvor’s arrangements for the songs, although always placing emphasis on the words, uses various forms of jazz and big ballad accompaniments, always imaginative and often witty. Taylor’s quiet opening of ‘Sous les Ponts de Paris’ has a delicate piano backing, which segues into a piano solo version of ‘Windmills of Your Mind’ between the verses. This song written by Vincent Scotto in 1913 was popularised by Eartha Kitt in the English version, ‘Under the Bridges of Paris’ in 1955. Taylor sees similarities in the working class, often difficult backgrounds of Kitt and Piaf, and celebrates the grit as well as the glamour in both singers. At the end of the first half, Piaf’s 1951 rousing hit, ‘Padam, padam’ leads into a comic chanson, ‘Je ne veux pas travailler’ (I don’t want to work). Although based on a poem by Apollinaire, it was in fact a hit for American band, Pink Martini, in 1997, and with its unaccompanied opening and soaring conclusion (and a talented audience member on hand-held percussion), it seems appropriately Parisian.
Karen enters first for the second half, playing a lovely old accordion (which I would happily have heard more of), and then strikes up the unmistakable opening to Bizet’s ‘L’amour est un oiseau rebelle,’ which Taylor sings as she proceeds from the back of the hall. Arguably Carmen is another proud French lower-class heroine, despite the opera’s setting! In sequinned red dress and shawl, Taylor continues the gypsy theme with ‘Whatever Lola Wants,’ a song from the 1955 musical ‘Damn Yankees,’ based on the character of Lola Montez. There follow several unexpected songs, Eartha Kitt’s version of Cole Porter’s ‘Let’s Do it’, one of Kurt Well’s songs in French, ‘Utopia’ written during his stay in Paris en route to his exile in the States – Taylor, a practised performer of Weill’s German songs, sings this beautifully - and, with absolutely nothing to do with Paris - Tom Lehrer’s ‘The Masochism Tango’, beginning “I ache for the touch of your lips, dear/ but much more for the touch of your whips, dear” which Taylor treats as a bravura party-piece.
We return to Piaf for the last part of the concert, after Taylor has explained her life-long fascination with the singer and her music. New to me was ‘Hymne à l’amour’ the elegy for Marcel, her dead lover, which Taylor sings with great fervour. I preferred this version with piano to the live online performance from 1950, in which Piaf’s voice is poignantly clear, but which suffers from a dated arrangement featuring backing singers. ‘La Vie en Rose’ from 1946, and ‘Je Ne Regrette Rien’ written just two years before Piaf’s death in 1962, bring the concert to a defiant conclusion. A well-satisfied audience give Taylor and Karen a prolonged and well-deserved ovation.
The French Zarathustra Trio play Ravel, Debussy and Saint-Saens on Friday, and also take part in Saturday’s Family Concert, featuring Saint-Saens ‘Carnival of the Animals’ with words and narration by Alexander McCall Smith.
