Alain Bernard's company presents us at the Avignon Festival off 2018 an enchanting musical show in which the author offers us his musical biography, in Piano Paradiso. To discover at the theater at the corner of the moon. After Piano Rigoletto it is the turn of Piano Paradiso to make its entrance on stage. The music? My life.
Comfortably seated, the spectator is in the theater, in front of an almost empty stage, very little light… Is something going to happen? Discreetly, a synthesizer shows its nose to the court…
The presence of the piano is more than an element of the decor
Of course! The presence of this piano is more than an element of decoration; it is the life, the whole life of Alain Bernard who enters, soberly dressed and reveals to us the secret of his life: music. No artifice, neither on stage nor in the costume, no exhortation from anyone could distract him from what is his very substance. Eighty-eight black and white touches on which he devoted his entire life and passions. Because for him, the piano is the king of instruments, – hence the title, Piano Paradiso – the one on which the pianist composes film music. This is its mission.
Alain Bernard's mission
He must fulfill an order by composing a small melancholic waltz. Little inspired by this mission, he takes the side roads and thus presents the various paintings of his life as an artist. From his first tedious lessons, through a boring musicology college, only the inspiration of the moment, the facetious diversion of famous pieces, counts for him.
Under the direction of Gil Galliot, with a lot of humor and irony, in a language rich in puns, he takes turns wearing the costume of a bonimenteur (the synth!), a university teacher (a real course on the hanger, musical instrument, à la Devos), conductor (German, it goes without saying!) not to mention pasticher Chopin, Enio Moricone, Gainsbourg, not to mention advertising music for radio and television credits. Small quiz for the spectators who give their all to find the answers…
Alain Bernard's talent is such as his fingers (extension of the keys, unless it is the opposite ?!?!) attack a classical piece and interpret it in the bossa nova way, jazz, tango, Russian music, Asian music without the spectator-listener, even with an informed ear, feeling the passage from one style to another… Fantastic! In the end, he will compose almost without thinking and in front of the public the small melancholic waltz. Mission accomplished!
An hour and fifteen minutes of happiness in the company of this mischievous musician, to live for all those who like to beat the measure in rhythm and leave the room with a smile on their lips in harmony ("and these days…") with music, the one that makes the heart beat!
Piano Paradiso by and By Alain Bernard
theatre: Au coin de la lune,
24 rue Buffon Avignon 84000
at 14h30 duration 1h15
Chantal Audeval
For Just Focus
