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PROFILES

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October 2018

Gil Marsalla

  • "You know France? Sure, Piaf and Aznavour!"

 

 

 
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 Auteur, metteur en scène et producteur, le Niçois Gil Marsala, à la tête de Directo Productions, a conquis le monde entier avec ses spectacles.

Directo Productions is a Niçois family-run entertainment business that's hitting the global jackpot by exporting French chanson's biggest icons. COTE talked to its CEO.

Tell us about your love of music and how Directo Productions came about. It's simple, I was born into a family of musicians!
At 14 I was already playing in a popular-music band for village fêtes and celebrations in the back country – it was a fantastic stage school. I studied music at the Conservatoire de Nice and social anthropology at the University jointly, then started my own company in 2001. I'm proud to come from that artistic milieu and to have that musical and technical knowledge; it means we don't need intermediaries to produce our events – that's our strong point! We organise events, such as the inauguration of Nice's tramway in 2007 and the Nice and Cannes harbour festivals, and we produce turnkey concerts for local councils – Bruel, Obispo, Mitchell, Kool and The Gang.

What made you cross the line and go international?
As 2010 loomed, the competition in our region was stiff, you had to make your mark. The film La Vie en Rose had been lauded at the Oscars and when I was travelling I found people talking to me about Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour, whose recent death has touched people around the globe. France's post-war musical heritage – the 50s to the 80s – is known the world over but rarely staged outside France. So first we produced a three-piece Piaf recital – female vocalist
and two musicians – that we toured from the States to Japan! That was the business booster I was looking for, so when the anniversary of Piaf's death came in 2013 then the centenary of her birth, we just had to go for it!

Piaf! The Show has been a huge success, with talented local performers.
Yes, according to Bureau Export it's the biggest international French success to date – no less than 300 performances and a million spectators over 50 countries! For practical reasons I wanted to put the show together in Nice. I was looking for a performer with real personality and modernity, and when I held regional auditions I discovered singer Anne Carrère from the Var. I put the money up to produce the show, with its set and videos and never-seen-before pictures of Piaf, at the Carnegie Hall in New York, the world's most prestigious concert hall. It returns to Grasse Theatre on 5 and 6 April 2019.

How did you then pursue this idea of paying our musical heritage tribute?
I chose to write a trilogy, with the intention of putting on one show a year. So after Piaf we conceived Paris! The Show with all those great post-war songs that everyone envies us. Then came Formidable! created with Charles Aznavour's permission. And we're going to produce Symphonic Piaf with Japanese musician Nobuyuki Nakajima. His successful adaptation of Gainsbourg's hits for a symphonic orchestra with Jane Birkin went straight to my heart. Edith Piaf's music has never been arranged for that kind of backing. The show will première at the Opéra de Nice on 14, 15 and 16 June 2019.

How do you maintain the strong connection with the Côte d’Azur and its region?
We're adamant about staying locally grounded. Our six-person team works with around 400 show-business professionals around the region. We produce humourists, festivals such as Les Plages du Rire in Nice and Les Nuits Guitares in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, which drew record audiences this year, and we contribute to all the Côte d’Azur's major events.

Do you have a madcap idea, a show you dream of producing?
Oh yes! Paris is the world's biggest tourism capital, so I'd love to mount a permanent show about that musical heritage by which everyone identifies us, along with the Moulin Rouge and the Lido. And of course I want to produce my shows on Broadway, with that 'French touch' only French artistes and producers possess.

Par Tanja Stojanov

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