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Sept. 7, 2012
A Renaissance woman
Melanie Gall has two shows at the Fringe Fest.
TOVA G. KORNFELD
She’s bilingual, she sings, she plays piano, she hosts a bi-weekly podcast, she writes and she acts, often doing one or all of these as she knits. Melanie Gall is a modern-day Renaissance woman.
Edmonton-born and -raised soprano Gall is a classical opera singer by training but a cabaret-style performer by passion. Her talent will be on display at the 2012 Vancouver Fringe Festival running Sept. 6-16 at Granville Island and around the city. Gall is performing at the Arts Club Revue Stage in two musicals, her one-woman More Power to Your Knitting, Nell and Ne Me Quitte Pas: Piaf and Brel, the Impossible Concert, a collaboration with baritone Bremner Duthie.
Coming off a cross-Canada Fringe circuit high, Gall said she is delighted to be bringing her shows to West Coast audiences. In a telephone interview with the Independent, Gall could not contain her enthusiasm for her “babies,” which played to rave reviews across the country. Nell won the CBC Best Musical award at the Winnipeg Fringe. The Winnipeg Sun called her work “extraordinary”; the Edmonton Sun gushed, “a voice like hers makes its own statement”; and the Winnipeg Free Press touted Piaf and Brel as “a must-see show.”
“The knitting show evolved from a Canadian Arts Grant I received to collect knitting songs from the turn of the century and create an album,” Gall said about the genesis of Nell. She added, ”I had to dig really deep to find many of them, which were so obsolete that they were out of print. I was fascinated by the project because, during the world wars, thousands of women on the home front contributed to the war effort by knitting items for the soldiers overseas. They started clubs where they would sit, knit and sing. These songs were never recorded, lost gems. I have recovered them.”
Moving from recording the album to creating the show took some time. “After a year on that project, I thought, I have just researched all of this great information, why not make a show out of it and help pay for grad school?”
The protagonist, Sadie Goldstein, is a New York City Lower East Side immigrant with dreams of singing glory. She answers a radio show ad looking for a “girl next door” type to host a knitting show. While she sits and knits, she tells her story against the background of Tin Pan Alley hits.
“A lot of the [play’s] audience knit during the show – we encourage them to bring their knitting! – and part of my shtick is to heckle them, which makes each show unique.” As to the Jewish aspect, “I made the lead character Jewish because I wanted to make the story personal to me, and the story of people growing up on the Lower East Side and becoming successful is quintessentially a Jewish one.”
Over the past few years, Gall has toured across North America with her one-woman tribute to Edith Piaf, The Sparrow and the Mouse, the life in song of Piaf as told from the perspective of her half-sister, Simone.
Piaf, orphaned at a young age, managed to pull herself out of poverty and the dregs of society to become France’s national pop singer. Her haunting ballads are known the world over. Gall has long been interested in the life and music of the French singer. “I love her music and I feel that her life and her enduring influence is fascinating.”
Jacques Brel, a Belgian-born singer-songwriter, also achieved his fame in France and is known for his dark, personal lyrics.
A casual comment by Duthie while he and Gall were both performing in Victoria that they should do a joint show led to the idea to bring the music of these two icons to one stage, something that had never been done before.
“Duthie and I wrote the show last fall, while I was in Ecuador and he was in France. We selected the signature songs of each artist and then told their stories against the background of our own lives. We debuted the show at the Ottawa Fringe after only having had five hours to rehearse. It was a hit.
“We have so much fun together,” Gall added. “Even though the show is scripted, we often go off script and just ad lib. I love singing in French because it is such a melodious and romantic language, and I can really express myself. Songs like ‘La Vie en Rose’ and ‘Amsterdam’ are just so emotional and lend themselves to both of our styles.”
Presently based in New York, and taking advantage of all that the Big Apple has to offer, Gall laughed when asked about her nomadic life. “I spend about five months a year singing opera around the world and five months doing Fringe festivals. I love to travel. I was in Prague last year and I got to sing an opera in Czech; that was really a challenge. In 2009, I sang in the Toronto world première of a Hebrew opera, And the Rat Laughed, based metaphorically on the Holocaust. I learned Hebrew in Hebrew school, I spent a summer on a kibbutz and I have sung opera in Israel on a number of occasions, but getting a chance to be part of the first Hebrew opera performed outside of Israel in my home country was amazing.”
As a result of her extensive travels, Gall published Europe: A Savvy Girl’s Guide. “I wrote this in about 10 months and specifically geared it to women because I knew what travel concerns can arise, and I wanted to pass on what I had learned, things that span the spectrum from how to pack a suitcase to how to rebuff unwanted advances. The book has done well and I am now working on a new knitting book with my sister.”
When asked why people should come and see her shows at this year’s Vancouver Fringe, Gall said, “With the knitting show, not only is it a great story but it is the only chance you will ever get to hear this cool, historical music, which essentially has been lost” since the war.
And the Piaf and Brel show is most definitely one of a kind, Gall confirmed. “This is an improbable concert – two fantastic performers who have never been heard together, and it is a wonderful mix of their music, some of the best music around.”
The Vancouver Fringe Festival delivers up an eclectic mix of more than 700 performances at various venues. Jewish community performers include Una Aya Osato with her show Recess, and David Mamet’s Romance is being staged by the Queer Arts Society. Tickets for individual shows are $10-$12 and a 10-show pass is available for $90. A one-time $5 membership fee applies. A full schedule and tickets are available at vancouverfringe.com.
Tova G. Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.
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