Edith Piaf wasn't called Piaf -- meaning "little sparrow" --- for nothing. She was a bit of a thing, but her coattails must have been long. Singers have been riding them since La Mome Piaf's death in 1964. The latest hopping merrily and eye-to-the-commercial aboard is Micheline Van Hautem, who brought her Micheline Sings Piaf into the Triad for one night so her local fan base could acclaim her and occasionally sing along in French.
By this time, I -- as much a Piaf maniac as many member of Van Hautem's audience -- have heard all sorts of chanteuses (few chanteurs) raid the famous ill-fated lover's repertoire. So I've learned there are various ways these disciples approach the exalted material, from merely delivering it to trying to make it their own to duplicating the sound as nearly as possible. (Nobody but Mireille Mathieu has really come close to the last option. Mathieu has the high-powered tremolo but doesn't cover the songs.)
Van Hautem's strategy is to flirt with it. Playful at times -- even cutesie -- she often emits tiny squeals to indicate sexual excitement. During musical breaks she twirls, so that when she lets her long hair down, it waves in the wind. She's given to gesticulating and has a penchant for ending numbers with one hand on a hip and the other pointing skyward to signal bravura.
Much non-Piafian artifice goes on as Van Hautem ticks off the familiar numbers and throws in biographical data familiar to anyone who's likely to have made a point of attending. Yet Van Hautem-in her black suit and red shawl-is likable. I can't fault her for that, even if, with a voice on the thin side, she runs the risk of trivializing the selections in the first third of a program sung mostly in French. That includes the opener "La Vie en Rose" (Piaf-Louis Gugliemi-Mack David), "Mon Ménage à Moi" (Jean-Louis Constantin-Norbert Glanzberg), "C'est Si Bon" (Yves Montand), "Pigalle" (Georges Ulmer), and a few Gallic others. Among the songs to which Van Hautem sang English words was "La Vie en Rose." But why, when the David translation is so pedestrian?
It was only when Van Hautem reached "Mon Dieu" (Michel Vaucaire-Charles Dumont) and relayed the story about Piaf chanting it at New York's Versailles Room after learning her lover Marcel Cerdan had died that Van Hautem-in honoring that memory-reached the emotional simplicity associated with Piaf. The other highlight was a song Piaf never sang but probably would have had she lived longer. Jacques Brel had written a lyric called "Je M'en Remets a Toi" for her, but only later did Charles Dumont compose the music. The song's a lambent stunner, and Van Hautem, who rarely was able to tap into Piaf's passion, sang it well enough to make at least one Piaf follower long to hear Piaf's never-to-be interpretation.
It should be noted that Steve Ross, whose French is trés gentil, guested on a few songs. (He and Van Hautem will do a tandem Piaf show in Florida soon.) It's to be hoped they don't reprise Brel's "Marieke" as a duet, which drains the ballad of all feeling. It should also be noted that Van Hautem imported pianist Guus Westdorp to add what musical weight he could.
Presented by and at the Triad,
158 W. 72nd St., NYC.
Jan. 30.