Émilie Jolie

Émilie Jolie is a French fairytale musical created by Philippe Chatel and arranged by Jean-Louis Bucchi. The CD was first released in 1979.

Famous French singers acted on the first version. For example: Georges Brassens, Henri Salvador, Julien Clerc, Alain Souchon, Laurent Voulzy, Louis Chedid, Françoise Hardy, Eddy Mitchell.

The second rendition also included prestigious French artists like : Johnny Hallyday, Alain Bashung, Jacques Dutronc, Maurane, Florent Pagny and Etienne Daho.

Nowadays Emilie Jolie is a reference in the children’s musical theater world and a well-known tale in France.

Summary

The narrator starts telling the story of a goldfish but… he suddenly realizes that he is mistaking. He is here to tell Emilie Jolie’s story! While her parents are out, the young Emilie lying alone in her bed is frightened by the darkness. She finds a picture book on the floor and, she immerses herself in it with the voice of the narrator. The first song called “song of the young girl in the empty bedroom” is displayed.

After that song, she finds herself in a landscape where everything, absolutely every single thing, is blue, even the sun. There she crosses the road of the Blue Rabbits’ Gathering who are facing a big problem: each time it rains and they catch a cold, they start sneezing and become red. (Song of the Blue Rabbits’ Gathering).

In the following page, Emilie arrives in front of a huge tree with lots of birds. One of them comes to her and after having introduced herself, the young girl asks him to take her with him in the sky. The bird answers that there are still many things for her to discover on earth before. (Song of Emilie and the Great Bird).

In the next page, she meets an ostrich who is longing to be a cabaret star in Broadway. The ostrich sing a song called the “Ostrich’s Song”.

Then, the little girl enters a dark and creepy page, the page of the witch. The latter feels doomed because of the situation she is in. For everyone she appears as a mean person, but in fact she is just waiting for a prince charming to love her and save her (Song of the Witch). Therefore, Emilie promises her to look for the prince charming through the book’s pages with the help of the narrator.

She turns the page, and meets a ballet of umbrella ribs.^[1] The umbrella ribs’ song starts playing. She is then strucked by an idea. She phones the blue rabbits, and asks them to come to the page she is in. They arrive, and she announces them that she has found a way for them not to become red. Indeed they just need to hold the umbrellas when it is raining and they are going to protect them (Resumption of the Blue Rabbits’ Gathering Song). In the next page, Emily meets a hedgehog who is sad because nobody wants to stroke him due to his quills. Emily as the “book’s fairy” decides to caress him to make him happy (Hedgehog’s Song).

And she continues on her way through the pages in quest of the prince. She meets an extraterrestrial who is crazy about the music in his spaceship (Extraterrestrial’s Song) ; a pebble abandoned by Tom Thumb, who feels lonely in the forest and she picks him up so that he goes with her in her pocket (Pebble’s Song) ; a cock and a donkey who have to share out the book’s words (Cock and Donkey’s Song) ; a little flower who doesn’t want to wilt under leaves so she picks her to put in her hair (Sad Little Flower’s Song) – this song isn’t in the first version. She also meets a nasty wolf abused by Granny (Wolf’s Song): she comforts him and reconciles him with Granny; and finally a raccoon who dreams of being colored (Dreaming Raccoon Song) so she gives him the blue of her eyes, the color of her blond hair and the pink of her cheeks.

When she turns the page, she ends up in a page where everything is white, and where there are big “E” big “N” and big “D”. She has arrived at the end of the book (Beginning of The End Song).

But she hasn’t find the prince charming for the witch, and refuses to end the story until she finds him. The narrator decides to create himself, the prince charming for the witch: the prince is not perfect because he neither has an armor nor a white horse, but to the witch, it does not matter (Novice Prince Charming’s Song). In front of all characters, the witch turns into a princess. The story can end. Emily falls asleep in her bed, rocked by the narrator who tells her that her new friends will always be in the picture book when she will need them (Final Song).

References