Singer Edith Piaf is widely regarded as one of the great voices of the 20th century, a fact certainly not lost on her most dedicated interpreter and contemporary French chanteuse, Nathalie Lermitte.
“The first time I really heard not her voice but her soul, I was 4 years old,” says Lermitte.
“I was in my house, alone, and I took a record and put on ‘Les Blouses Blanche.’ It’s not a very known song, but it was a shock. It was very strong.”
In an interview to promote “Piaf! The Show,” which comes San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre on Nov. 6, Lermitte checked in from her native France via Zoom on Oct. 11, 60 years to the day Piaf died in 1963.
“When she began, she was the little Edith and she became Piaf. I think that Piaf tried to heal the little Edith and all the songs are quite her story, even if it’s not the real story,” says Lermitte.
As the legend of Piaf is known, she was raised in a brothel and began her career as a street performer. Turning professional by the time she was a teenager, Piaf had sympathetic composers in her corner, like her friend Marguerite Monnot.
She eventually wrote her own songs, including her most famous piece, “La vie en rose.”
Performing unforgettable pieces like “Non, je ne regrette rien” and “Hymne a L’amour,” Piaf rose to become among the most popular singers in France, and eventually the world. Her life ended tragically at age 47 following a series of accidents, addiction and ultimately liver cancer.
A musical theater performer since the age of 6, Lermitte, now in her 50s, felt a familiar shock of recognition again in her 20s when she was asked by a director to audition by singing Piaf’s songs for a stage show based on her life.
“‘You’re Edith Piaf,’ he said, and I said, ‘No! You’re crazy.’ It took me quite a long time to think about it but I said yes and it changed my life,” says Lermitte. “That was 25 years ago.”
Describing at least part of the singer’s long-lasting appeal, Lermitte says, “You don’t have to understand the words. The meaning of the song is above the words. I think it’s truth — the truth of the moment, truth of the emotions. The truth is eternal. I think that’s why Edith Piaf is so alive.”
Lermitte doesn’t play favorites, though there is one song from Piaf’s late period that never fails to move her.
“I very much like ‘Milord,’” she said. With music by Monnot, “I knew very well the person who did the lyrics [Georges Moustaki] and he explained a lot of things to me about ‘Milord.’”
A song about a working-class girl who falls for an elegant older man, Piaf’s version is perhaps the best-known recording, though it’s been interpreted by countless vocalists and groups along the way, from Cher and Liza Minnelli to female punk rockers, the Mo-dettes.
“You think it’s quite happy but it’s the saddest song of Edith Piaf,” says Lermitte. Using her hands, she demonstrated the song’s emotional states as a wave or roller coaster. “I love this song.”
As a stage performer, Lermitte appreciates the energetic exchange she feels between herself and the theater crowd.
“An audience is like one person — it’s a meeting. Emotions and truth are international and I think that all the audiences all over the world receive the same thing.”
“A man came to me when we did Broadway in January and he said to me,
‘I must say to you I didn’t understand at all the words, but I have to tell you my heart understood everything.’ All over the world, it’s the same.”
Conceived and directed by Gil Marsalla, the 90-minute “Piaf! The Show” — with Philippe Villa on piano, Frédéric Viale on accordion, Benoît Pierron on percussion and Giliard Lopes on bass — is a walk through the iconic performer’s songbook that also features previously unpublished images in the stage design.
“This show is like a trip through the songs of Edith Piaf and a trip through Paris, a voyage as we say in French,” says Lermitte. “Like a French experience.”
With over 600 performances since 2015 in 50 countries well beyond the Francophone world, “The show is about the songs and the songs are the meaning of her life,” says Lermitte.
“Weeping or laughing, the audience must know Edith Piaf sang very sad songs but in real life she was so happy, she loved life, she did a lot of jokes.”
“When I was 4 years old, I didn’t know the meaning of the song but I took something very important,” says Lermitte. “And I knew it was important the first time a director asked me to sing Edith Piaf.”
Lermitte paused to self-translate her final thoughts.
“There is a saying in French, ‘Good music doesn’t lose its way. The music goes straight to the heart to take out the sadness.’ I believe the songs of Edith Piaf, go to the heart and take the sadness away.”
“Piaf! The Show” is at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 6 at Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. Tickets are $60 to $100 at cityboxoffice.com or (415) 392-4400.