Claron McFadden – Chez Bricktop
Claron McFadden & Claire Chevallier concept/performance, Luigi de Angelis direction/lighting design/scenography, Chiara Lagani dramaturgy, Janelle Gil musical coaching/ arrangements, Bram de Looze arrangements
Bertrand Belin vocals, Perrine Philomeen styling, Pieter-Jan Buelens sound, Anne van Es light
Special guests: Tcha Limberger violin/guitar, Vilmos Csikós double bass, Benjamin Clement guitar
Muziektheater Transparant and Fanny & Alexander
Co-production Klarafestival and Perpodium
Support of Tax Shelter and the Belgium Federal Govergment
With the song cycle series American Beauties, soprano Claron McFadden and pianist Claire Chevallier highlight African-American artists who migrated to Europe from the United Sates after the First World War. One of them was dancer, jazz singer and vaudeville artist Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith (1894 – 1984), better known as Bricktop, because of her reddish-brown hair. She was the owner of the famous Paris nightclub Chez Bricktop, the setting for this concert.
Chez Bricktop was a hub for French artists as well as for African-Americans who had moved to Paris in order to escape the systemic racism and constant denial of humanity they faced in America. Through the story of Bricktop, McFadden and Chevallier recreate the musical atmosphere of Montmartre, then known as the ‘Harlem of Paris’. The jazz that arrived from America (i.e. James Reese Europe, Scott Joplin, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington) is coupled to the French music of the time (i.e. Erik Satie, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Django Reinhardt). In their performance, McFadden and Chevallier evoke the atmosphere of Montmartre, known at the time as the ‘Harlem of Paris’, in a concert version of the theatre production.