An exceptionally talented woman, I have been the lucky person to have lived with for over 3 years and helped her achieve part of what she wanted to accomplish.
Some achievements were astounding to say the least.
The very first time we met was when she sailed into my office, in a luxurious apartment in Monte-Carlo, she was all made up with lots of hair to play her part in a new age group 'Neapolis' with Fabrizio Barbato, signed by Herman Rarebell (ex drummer of the Scorpions) on his Monaco Records label.
Bubbly and enthusiastic they presented their pictures and song texts, in order for me to design the CD image and booklet.
Louisiane the chameleon, the born actress, in a slight of hand a make-up artist could turn her into almost anyone. And she would 'wear' a complete transformation naturally.
Her vibrant angelic soprano voice would stir your inner soul wherever she would sing, in theater, studio, the street, a restaurant or even being a passenger on a motorbike, heads would turn, people would stop doing what they were doing, sometimes not even realizing why.
She enjoyed singing anywhere in any surrounding, even upside down hanging by the feet.
Our friends loved to have her around, always beaming and game to play the piano, sing and make people happy.
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| Training with Laura Didier Gambardella |
An artist, actor, entertainer, soprano, performer.
Fluent in 4 languages and even more fluent in music. She could write music scores like we would write a shopping list. Under the score she would jot the lyrics in English, Russian, Italian or French whatever came to mind and then proceed in a nick of time to adapt the scores for the other instruments.
It was nearly impossible to record her voice with modern digital equipment, there was too much of cut off, specially in the highs. Sometimes we managed by putting the microphones above and behind her!
We found a studio from the early 1960's, in the bowels of a famous restaurant in Vallecrosia, Italy; ERIO's, where in long gone years the rich & famous of Monte-Carlo would dine and party. The same underground studio were Maria Callas recorded some of her aria's on the 80 track Sony analog tape recorder, it was still the same, a time lapse.
For months, we spend days and nights recording Louisiane. There were the good days and there were the bad days. Sometimes very sad, then beaming, the way artists are, the highs and the lows. It needed a lot of patience to produce good tracks and Erio's food and drink did help soothe the way.
Once she got the hang of studio recording, we recorded some arias for FR3 in their studios in the Marais in Paris, some vocals for a UK album in the mythic Abby Road Studios, actually in the same studio the Beatles and many other famous artists recorded.
Then she would be off to Rome and have some lessons in Milano and stay in Como.
A good thing, my business was in Monaco and Milano, so sometimes we met 'on the road' in Rome, Venice, Como, Milano or Lugano.
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| With Renata Scotto |
Louisiane was every month top listed on the then US MP3.com charts. We were contacted by an American tenor, George Swails (Rebel Tenor), who suggested to record a duet with Louisiane via Internet. We were in the year 2000, Internet was still slow, slow. George presented Reinhold Behringer, The Virtual Philharmonic, who supplied the orchestration for the duet of Tosca to be recorded virtually. George Swails sang the tenor part of the duet in CA, this recording was then send via FTP to my office in MC and then taken to the studio in Italy.
Louisiane did her magic of stretching and squeezing the recording, tailoring it to her vocals and we recorded her voice to produce the master.
This was never ever done before in the world and I believe no one has ever even tried such a feat.
Two professional opera singers, who never ever met, never spoke to each other, masterfully recorded a very complex lyric duet.
After the Tosca duet, we produced La Boheme duet, just to prove they could do almost anything.
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| Last Waltz - Bal de l'Ete, Monte-Carlo |
Louisiane went for voice training to Croatia and when she came back something was broken.
The day we split, I drove her to Toulon, my life collapsed, it somehow imploded.
You only realize how much you love someone, the day you separate, it just smashes you to bits.
So now after all these years, I put the material I produced on the web so its not getting lost cause of my eternal moving countries.
Just enjoy!
Namaste
Jigme Dawa - Roy Hulsbergen
