Biography
Pascal Bastia was the son of chansonnier-songwriter, singer, actor, filmmaker Jean Bastia (1878-1940), born in a family from the Corsican village of Vescovato. The cartoonist Georges Bastia and the film director Jean Bastia were his brothers.
Vescovato is a commune in the Haute-Corse department of France on the island of Corsica.
Jean Bastia, was a French film director, screenwriter and film producer.
He made his debut aged 19 with two works written under the pseudonym Irving Paris, Ma Femme (1927) and Un joli monsieur, but encountered real success under his real name with the operetta Dix-neuf ans (1933). This play was the first to be inspired by light jazz introduced in France by Mireille and the Quintette du Hot Club de France around Stéphane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt. The latter appeared in the orchestra that accompanied the recordings of the play. In 1933, Dix-neuf ans was given 300 times at the Théâtre Daunou. The cast was composed of Éliane de Creus (later replaced by Suzy Delair) and Jean Sablon, surrounded by Lily Mounet, Jean Bastia, Reda Caire and some debutantes including Viviane Romance. The work was performed in the provinces, in Amsterdam and Oran. There were more than 1,500 performances.
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music". Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression. It then emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms".
Mireille Hartuch was a French singer, composer, and actress. She was generally known by the stage name "Mireille," it being a common practice of the time to use a single name for the stage.
The Quintette du Hot Club de France, often abbreviated "QdHCdF" or "QHCF", was a jazz group founded in France in 1934 by guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli and active in one form or another until 1948.
After the war, Pascal Bastia continued his career with ups and downs, mostly in the provinces with Mademoiselle Star (1945) or Gardes françaises (Reims, 1962). This last play was closer to opéra comique, like Georges van Parys's or Maurice Yvain's latest works. But he would never again find the success of Dix-neuf ans.
Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged from the popular opéras comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent, which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections. Associated with the Paris theatre of the same name, opéra comique is not always comic or light in nature; Carmen, perhaps the most famous opéra comique, is a tragedy.
Maurice Yvain was a French composer, noted for his operettas of the 1920s and 1930s, some of which were written for Mistinguett, at one time the best-paid female entertainer in the world. In the 1930s and 1940s he became a major success in the United States and several of his pieces appeared in the famous Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway. He also composed music for several films of notable directors such as Anatole Litvak, Julien Duvivier and Henri-Georges Clouzot and his music blended with the then "spirit of Paris".
Pascal Bastia was one of the first composers to not orchestrate his own scores, the American way: Ma Femme was orchestrated by André Sablon (elder brother of John), Un joli Monsieur by Mac Curthy, Dix-neuf ans by Jef de Murel and Michel Emer. On the other hand, he wrote most librettos and lyrics for his operettas.
André Eugène Sablon was a 20th-century French composer. Prematurely died at the age of 51, he is buried at Montparnasse Cemetery.
Michel Emer, , was a French musician, composer and lyricist. His songs have been performed by Edith Piaf, Fréhel, Damia, Lys Gauty, Yves Montand, Jean Sablon, André Claveau, Ray Ventura and his Collegians, Luis Mariano, Tino Rossi, and Eartha Kitt. He also wrote songs for at least one of his wife Jacqueline Maillan's shows.
A libretto is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term libretto is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet.
A singer-songwriter, his song were interpreted by the greatest: Jean Sablon, Joséphine Baker, Luc Barney. He also was the author of music and film scripts. He wrote the comedy Ce monde n'est pas pour les anges (1950, Théâtre Édouard VII).
The Théâtre Édouard VII, also called théâtre Édouard VII – Sacha Guitry, is located in Paris between the Madeleine and the Opéra Garnier in the 9th arrondissement. The square, in which there is a statue of King Edward the Seventh, was opened in 1911. The theatre, which was originally a cinema, was named in the honour of King Edward VII, as he was nicknamed the "most Parisian of all Kings", appreciative of French culture. In the early to mid 1900s,under the direction of Sacha Guitry, the theatre became a symbol of anglo-franco friendship, and where French people could discover and enjoy Anglo Saxon works. French actor and director Bernard Murat is the current director of the theatre. Modern "boulevard comedies" and vaudevilles are often performed there, and subtitled in English by the company Theatre in Paris. Important figures in the arts, cinema and theatre have performed there, including Orson Welles, Eartha Kitt, and more. Pablo Picasso created props for a play at the Théâtre Edouard VII in 1944.
