-Thursday, December 9, 2010, Palais de l’Europe at 8:30 PM
-Piano: Jean-Philippe Collard Narrator: Patrick Poivre d’Arvor
-Concept and staging: Jean-Michel Verneiges Lighting design: Jean-Pierre Créance
Longtime friends, Jean-Philippe Collard and Patrick Poivre d’Arvor meet on stage to celebrate Chopin (1810-1849) and commemorate the bicentenary of his birth.
Sharing a passion for music so close to language, they weave, intertwine, and liberate words and notes where eternal games of love are reflected.
In his anthology of French poetry, from the Renaissance to the present day, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor’s favorite texts often convey this love that is hard to express.
He has chosen to read himself the deepest and most intimate ones, as a counterpoint to Chopin’s piano, whose true homeland, according to Heine, is “the enchanted realm of poetry.”
From Ronsard to Apollinaire, Verlaine to Éluard, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor shares his emotions, far from historical evocations, to retain only timeless thoughts, remember feverish urges, and recount dreams or separations.
In ten tableaux, from waltz to prelude, nocturne to sonata, Jean-Philippe Collard entwines these offerings of masterpieces in an unprecedented dialogue where Chopin’s music, which calms and excites, as Jankélévitch writes, immerses us in a “state of poetic intoxication.”
-Jean-Philippe Collard
Born in 1948, Jean-Philippe Collard started studying piano very young and joined the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris at the age of eleven. In 1964, he received his First Prize in piano and continued his studies with Pierre Sancan. In 1969, he became a laureate of the Concours Long-Thibaud and in 1970, he received the First Grand Prize of the Cziffra Competition. Today, with a discography of more than fifty albums, Jean-Philippe Collard travels the great international stages from Carnegie Hall to Teatro Colón, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and Royal Albert Hall.
-Patrick Poivre d’Arvor
Born in 1947, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor initially aspired to become a diplomat and earned a degree in law. Graduating from the Institute of Political Studies of Bordeaux and the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (in Russian and Serbo-Croatian), he won the “Special Envoy” contest by France Inter in 1971. He then became a Grand Reporter. From 1976, he presented the 8 PM news on Antenne 2 for seven years. From 1987 to 2008, he helmed the 8 PM news on TF1 from Monday to Thursday. Since 2009, he has dedicated himself to writing and his humanitarian commitments. He recently published an anthology of French poetry “Et puis voici des fleurs…” (Le Cherche Midi).
