OK, so it's not exactly Verlaine – but, as we waited for the cast of Luc Plamondon's new pop opera "Cindy" to arrive on stage at MIDEM, we were subjected to the video 18 times. And, frankly, you'd have to be half brain-dead not to have the words buzzing round your head at the end! Certain cynics in the audience at MIDEM muttered darkly about "hype" and "overkill". But didn't they realise how difficult it was to park on the Croisette? Monsieur Plamondon – used as he is to those vast Canadian landscapes – must simply have been having a hard time squeezing his Limo into a tight space!

Just as the "Cindy" video threatened to loop into its 19th repeat, Luc Plamondon strode into the room, flanked by one of his new male leads, Murray Head. The Québécois songwriter and British singer appeared to have got the Blues Brothers look off pat – both looked dapper in almost identical black suits and film-star dark shades! Taking to the stage, the pair started the ball rolling by explaining that:
1°) As MIDEM had been the perfect showcase for Monsieur Plamondon's last hit musical, "Notre-Dame de Paris", in 1998, it seemed only fitting that he should launch "Cindy" from the same spot four years later!
2°) The story of Cinderella, on which Plamondon's "Cindy" is "loosely based", can be traced back to China, 11 B.C. – i.e. 31 B.P. (before Plamondon).
3°) Various artists (such as Perrault, Grimm, Rossini and Prokoviev, for instance) have already sought inspiration in the Cinderella fairy-tale before Romano Musumarra and Luc Plamondon came up with the ultimate glass-slipper remix.

In fact, Plamondon has rewritten the classic fairy-tale for the 21st-century, having his "Cindy" grow up in a tower block on a run-down housing estate in the city suburbs. And the audience who attend the première of Cindy the "pop opera" at the Palais des Congrès in Paris on 25 September can expect to find poor Cindy suffering at the hands of her evil stepmother (an ex-disco queen) and two ugly white-trash sisters. Local rock star Prince Charming rides in to save Cindy from her dead-end lifestyle, of course – but that's enough of the plot for now. We don't want to spoil the suspense!
Having explained the ancient Chinese origins of Cinderella, Luc and Murray came to the eagerly-awaited moment when they got to present the all-singing, all-acting cast of "Cindy". First out of the wings was Chtimi (a young angel-faced singer who looked disturbingly like a face-lifted Dave), followed by Prince Charming (Frank Sherbourne), black male beauty Jay (former singer with the Poetic Lovers), a charming Vietnamese-Antillaise singer by the name of Kristel Adams and up-and-coming Arab diva Assia. Meanwhile, Judith Bérard and Patsy Galland flew the flag for Québec.
But the real gem of Plamondon's casting has to be Lââm in the title role of Cindy. As French music fans already know, the glamorous Tunisian-born singer ended up living under the auspices of the French social services at the age of 6. Now, you can't get much better than a real-life Cinderella playing her own story, can you?
Another genius stroke of casting by producer Charles Talar was to offer an ugly sister role to Karine, one of the recent finalists from TV show "Star Academy" (the French equivalent of "Pop Stars"). Jackpot! At the end of the showcase, hundreds of young fans rushed up to get the Star Academy loser's autograph.

We're sad to report that Plamondon's modern-day reworking of Cinderella omits a few central characters – such as the fascist security guard, the Portuguese cleaning-lady and the ultra-patriotic O.A.P. – but, hey, you can't have everything, can you? The rest of the cast assembled on stage at the "Grand Auditorium" in Cannes proceeded to launch into a selection of 11 preview songs from the show. Now, it's normal for there to be a few cases of stage fright, a lot of emotion and certain allowances must be made for this having been a "showcase" and "not the real thing". But, frankly, there were a couple of performers in that line-up singing distinctively out of tune! We're naming no names, you'll find out for yourselves in September unless the guilty parties sign up for professional singing lessons before then!
But, to be completely honest, it's the lyrics rather than the performers which are the most noticeably lacking. Let's just say, the text of some of the songs would have Perrault spinning in his grave - and leave it at that! Cindy's target audience is obviously children but frankly, if they're over the age of 3, they'll be toddling to the ticket office and demanding to be reimbursed tout de suite!

We'll be back reporting from MIDEM tomorrow with real music news.