The international military and musical festival “Spasskaya Tower” is held in Moscow for the tenth time. Traditionally, orchestras from all over the world gather on Red Square: this year among the festival contestants there are 30 bands from 14 countries or about 1400 musicians.

Orchestras from Austria, Switzerland, Egypt and Turkey, Great Britain and India come to visit Russian colleagues. All of them rehearse concert programs for several months, and some conductors prepare single compositions for the festival. The leader of the Italian cabiners’ orchestra Massimo Martinelli, who composed a march “Kremlin” specially for “Spasskaya Tower-2017”, can be related to such conductors.

Naturally, all guests of the festival are looking forward to seeing its main symbol on Red Square – a great French singer Mireille Mathieu. For last nine years she arrives in Moscow in these August days to delight Russian listeners with her unique talent.

As usual, the performance of the worldly famous artist started with her general hit “Pardonne Moi Ce Caprice D’enfant.” Then the viewers were really surprised: featuring the Honored artist of Russia Zara, Mireille Mathieu sang a song “Under the Parisian sky” from Edith Piaf’s repertoire. In different times it was performed by other French stars: Ives Montand, Charles Aznavour, Juliette Greco.

“It’s an indescribable feeling, – said Zara. – Mireille offered a song “Under the Parisian sky” herself. An amazing song. Now you hardly ever can find such wonderful texts. We were rehearsing for several days. Rehearsals and concert are two different things. How her eyes are shining on the stage! Today, despite the bad and cold weather, it seems to me that our performance was successful. It was totally sincere and touching. I hope we managed to provide the atmosphere of the song and the idea that was set in it.”

For the first time Mireille Mathieu and Zara sang as a duet last year at “Spasskaya Tower” as well. That time they chose a song “Padam…Padam…”, which was performed by Edith Piaf. Zara remembers that they had to rehearse on the phone and didn’t have enough time. In spite of it, the first duet of prime donna of the French scene and her Russian colleague was successful. Concerning the work on the song “Under the Parisian sky” , this time both singers saw each other very often, so they had the opportunity to make the each detail in the performance perfect.

By the way, the sisters of Mireille Mathieu attended the rehearsals. “All of them are very good at music, – Zara recollects. – If I was singing a phrase in a wrong way, they corrected me altogether”.

Mireille Mathieu highly appreciated the masterity of her singing partner: “Zara was working very much and completed her task. She is a beautiful lady and a great singer.”

The Russian and French duet had to perform in the rain. However, according to Mathieu’s words, the weather conditions never stopped her: “When I sing, I forget about everything at all, even if it’s raining and cold wind blows. The audience is in the same conditions as me. And the people are great at the festival.”

From the very beginning at “Spasskaya Tower” the relations between artists turned into sincere lady’s friendship. So we can hope that we’ll able to hear the duet of Russian and French stars in future.

The source: Moskovsky Komsomolec

Other popular internet publications wrote about Zara’s and Mireille Mathieu’s duet: Cenzury.net, ROSBALT, Planet Today, Solovey Info, Komsomolskaya pravda, Hello Magazine, Otkrovenno RU, Pro.Iskusstvo.