Piaf! The Show

Piaf! The Show - the critically acclaimed tribute to the legendary French chansonette Edith Piaf has already captivated over a million visitors worldwide at more than 400 performances in over 50 countries. Now the hit show, which - like Piaf herself in 1957 - sold out New York's Carnegie Hall, is coming to Switzerland - and making its first guest appearance in Basel: almost 60 years to the day after the tragic death of the unique singer, her songs will once again enchant people on the stage of the Musical Theater Basel.

Conceived and directed by renowned theater maker Gil Marsalla, "Piaf! The Show" is unanimously described not only by the audience and the press, but also by close friends of Edith Piaf - such as Ginou Richer, Edith Piaf's private secretary, Germaine Ricord, her friend, and especially Charles Dumont - as: "...the most beautiful homage ever produced for Edith Piaf and her unique career...".

Premiered in 2015 on the occasion of the 100th birthday of the world-famous singer, "Piaf! The Show" tells the story of Edith Piaf's multifaceted and far too short life in a total of 90 minutes, as she literally rose from street brat to millionaire. With the help of her unforgettable songs as well as projections of carefully selected and partly unpublished photographs and pictures of famous Parisian locations from the singer's era, "Piaf! The Show" takes the audience on an emotional and stirring journey through time. The focus is on Piaf's chansons and ballads, which still inspire today with their unmistakable and poetic character and have lost nothing of their magical effect.

On stage, "La Môme", as the French affectionately call Piaf, is embodied by Nathalie Lermitte. Lermitte is considered by all those who were close to Edith Piaf as THE great French-speaking Piaf interpreter. Born only after the death of her idol, the singer and actress takes on Piaf's work with great skill and even greater intensity and respect - and thanks to her unique voice and impressive stage presence, Lermitte manages the feat of filling Piaf's songs about sorrow and happiness, misery and lust with life and passion, without ever getting into the embarrassment of simply copying the original. She adds another facet to the "Piaf myth", a facet of her own, which makes "Piaf! The Show" to a truly special experience.

The first part of the show offers an insight into the life of Edith Piaf before she became famous. The visitors:inside virtually take a seat on the terrace of a small Parisian café or on a cobbled square in Montmartre. This is where Piaf, who was only 147 centimeters tall, spent her early years, singing in the streets and relying on the kindness of strangers who threw her spare change. In this part Nathalie Lermitte sings mainly the early, partly less known songs associated with Piaf - while in the second part everything revolves around the time and great performances after Edith Piaf achieved world fame. In this part, the audience is transported back to the famous Olympia in Paris or New York's Carnegie Hall in 1957 - and experiences special moments and the greatest hits of the exceptional singer live once again.


Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.