Préparez-vous à être surpris, not to mention, amazed. J’ai commencé ma série “My Favorite French Men” about two months ago, et aujourd’hui je vous présente le troisième. Je dois préciser that I’m not ranking them in any way shape or form. I’m just introducing you to them in a random order. Today, I want to share with you one of the most breathtakingly beautiful male voices, ever. The kind of voice you might even have never heard… si vous ne me croyez pas, je vous conseille de regarder les vidéos que j’ai ajoutées à ce blog post, but make sure to sit down first. Sérieusement. Trust me.

 

Au fait, au cas où you’ve missed the first two “My Favorite French Men” blog posts, feel free to discover Sylvain Tesson and Albert Camus.

 

Et maintenant, Mesdames et Messieurs, je vous présente le grand, le magnifique, le sublime, l’étonnant, j’ai nommé : Philippe Jaroussky! What’s so special about him you may say? Let me ask you something d’abord : have you ever heard a countertenor voice? Connaissez-vous la voix des contre-ténors? Do you even know what a contre-ténor voice sounds like? Voici un schéma qui explique la classification des voix lyriques :

 

 

Aujourd’hui, nous nous concentrons sur les voix des hommes. Vous voyez que la voix la plus basse, the lowest voice, chez les hommes s’appelle basse profonde, alors que la voix la plus aiguë, the highest voice, s’appelle contre-ténor. Et voilà, you’ve guessed, Philippe Jaroussky sings with the highest possible voix pour un homme. That in itself is enough to be surprising, mais pas assez pour être amazing.

 

Avant de vous parler un peu de sa vie, why don’t you watch the below vidéo en français avec les sous-titres en français (donc facile à suivre et comprendre) so you can hear son incroyable voix :

 

 

J’ai découvert Philippe Jaroussky en 2015, par hasard, sur Youtube, et depuis c’est le grand amour! Attention, le mot hasard est un faux-ami! Il ne signifie pas un danger (a hazard) mais une coïncidence. Enfin, on ne peut pas vraiment parler de hasard puisque j’adore l’opéra et que les algorithmes connaissent bien nos goûts, n’est-ce pas? Le concert ci-dessous is the first one I ever watched : enchanting voice, accompanied par un orchestre enchanteur, le tout in the enchanting Palais de Versailles. Que demander de plus?

 

Please feel free to listen to the whole thing mais je peux aussi vous conseiller les deux morceaux que je préfère écouter et chanter :

 

7:00 – Sposa non mi conosci

1:10:02 – Alto Giove

 

 

Alors, alors? Fabuleux, n’est-ce pas? Je pense que si le Paradis existe, alors il ressemble and it sounds just like that. En tous cas, mon Paradis à moi oui.

 

Do you wonder what his “normal” spoken voice sounds like? Voici des extraits d’une émission de télévision que j’aime bien et qui s’appelle Thé ou Café. La présentatrice explore la vie de ses invités d’une façon très intime et bienveillante qui me plaît. She also often has really interesting guests :

 

 

Son nom Jaroussky est d’origine russe car ses arrière-grands-parents ont fuit la révolution bolchévique de 1917. Il est né en 1978 dans la banlieue parisienne où il a grandi et a commencé à apprendre la musique (violon puis piano) à l’école. Which means he did not train as a singer but as a musician. D’ailleurs, il découvre sa voix de contre-ténor assez tard vers ses 18 ans puis commence sa carrière trois ans plus tard. Since then, he has become an international star, performing all over the world, selling millions of records. He even launched his own Académie Jaroussky à la Seine musicale en 2017! This is what can happen quand la talent et l’ambition habitent une seule et même personne.

 

Dans la deuxième partie de l’émission de télévision Thé ou café, vous continuerez de découvrir la vie du beau Philippe and you’ll hear him sing some more including la première fois qu’il est monté sur scène à l’âge de 13 ans… adorable!

 

 

A lot of the musique classique that Philippe Jaroussky sings was originally created for des grandes voix de castrats at the end of the 17th / beginning of 18th century. Un castrat est un chanteur de sexe masculin ayant subi la castration avant sa puberté afin de conserver sa voix d’enfant. This apparently gave adult men the ability to sound more or less like women yet with a much more powerful voice. This was also caused by the hormonal imbalance producing in these men much larger than normal lungs and therefore the ability to sing a note forever (ou presque!) sans avoir besoin de s’arrêter pour respirer.

 

La grande période des castrats couvre la fin du XVIIe et le début du XVIIIe siècle. C’est probablement l’influence de la révolution française et de la Déclaration des droits de l’homme écrite en 1789 qui a mis fin à ces cruelles pratiques. It became no longer acceptable to mutilate little boys so that they would keep their young voices et la mode des voix masculines très aiguës disparaît… jusqu’au milieu du XXe siècle!

 

If you love to perfect your French by watching French movies, here’s an award winning one qui retrace la vie du très célèbre castrat Farinelli (1705 – 1782). Je vous ajoute la bande-annonce ci-dessous.

 

“It is believed that the most incredible human voices ever heard belonged to the castrati boy singers deprived of their manhood. As adults, being a castrato did not, however, prevent them from leading lives of great eroticism and romance.”

 

 

Je vous conseille ce film que j’ai adoré!

 

Allez, soyons fous, un dernier pour la route. Dans cette vidéo, Philippe Jaroussky chante avec la chanteuse et chef d’orchestre française Nathalie Stutzmann. On top of singing and conducting at the same time, l’autre élément remarquable chez elle est sa voix : contralto, la voix la plus basse pour les femmes. Can you even begin to imagine what happens when you mix the highest of men voices with the lowest of women voices? Un miracle de beauté. Regardez et vous verrez!

 

 

J’espère que la beauté de ces voix vous touchent autant que moi! Don’t hesitate to share some of your favorite ones dans les commentaires!

 

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Learn French online with Virginie

Join French Truly’s online school, either by buying the French online course(s) of your choice or by becoming a monthly member. See more details about the membership at the bottom of this page

Each French online course is packed with video & audio files along with written material, to make it as fun, easy, and user friendly as possible for you! Come and learn French online with me!

 

French online course #1: 600 WORDS

In this course, you will find 15 videos (+ 10 bonus ones) to help & accompany you every step of the way through the course + for each word, each sentence, each expression, each conjugated verb, I have created an audio file of my voice, slow and slightly faster speed. Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.

 

Did you know…

You can converse (speak + understand) in French with only 600 WORDS?

The average French person only uses between 300 & 3,000 WORDS?

This means that if you can master a relatively short list of words, you’ll be able to express yourself like the average French person! Plus you’re much more likely to understand the French when they talk back to you!

 

This course will teach you…

1- How to speak French

2- How to pronounce French

3- How to make French sentences

4- How to conjugate all the most common French verbs

5- How to polish your results

6- How to self evaluate your French

More info HERE

• It should take you about 30 hours to complete this course, which is made up of 10 lessons
• This course is designed for a beginner / intermediate level. If you are intermediate but feel like you could really reinforce your foundations, you will love it.
• You can join whenever, either by buying the course or by becoming a monthly member giving you access to my French online courses from $10 / month. See more details about the membership at the bottom of this page

 

Online course # 2: PERFECT PRONUNCIATION

In this course you will find 11 videos + 150 audio files + 92 pages PDF format to help & accompany you every step of the way throughout the course. In some parts of the videos, my face will appear close up and profile so you can easily see how I make these sounds with my mouth. The 150 audio files are composed of the 100 most popular French words and the 50 most common French phrases. They are recordings of my voice, speaking slowly enough so you can easily grasp every syllable. Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.

NB: if you are the proud owner of my previous French online course 600 WORDS, don’t worry, this is not a repeat as we are now exploring 1 letter words and up, whereas in 600 WORDS we began at 4 letter words and up.

 

Combine knowledge with confidence…

For you to be able to have a pleasant and efficient conversation with a French person, one thing is key… can you guess what it is? Confidence! How well do you think you will communicate in French if you don’t feel confident about your accent? If you are scared that people won’t understand you? Or even worse if you think someone might make fun of you? Without a minimum of confidence there is no room for communication. Yet if you feel confident, you can afford to make a few mistakes here and there because people will still understand you. What prevents a conversation from happening isn’t just a lack of knowledge, it’s also a lack of confidence. You need to have both to make it work, not to mention, to make it fun!

 

This course will teach you…

1- How to pronounce every letter of the alphabet

2- How to pronounce every digraph & trigraph

3- How to make every French sentence flow

4- How to pronounce the 100 most popular French words

5- How to pronounce the 50 most popular French phrases

6- How to avoid the pronunciation mistakes everyone makes

More info HERE

• It should take you about 20 to 2 hours to complete this course, which is made up of 11 lessons
• This course is designed for a beginner level. If you are intermediate but lack confidence when it comes to talking and feel like you could really benefit from focusing on pronunciation, you will love it.
• You can join whenever, either by buying the course or by becoming a monthly member giving you access to my French online courses from $10 / month. See more details about the membership below 

 

Online course # 3: FRENCH DICTÉES

 

In the FRENCH DICTÉES online course you will find 20 videos + 10 audio files to help & accompany you every step of the way throughout the course. Why 20 videos? Because there are 10 dictées in total, each focusing on one particular topic, and for each dictée I have prepared 2 videos. Let’s say the video focuses on both French past tenses called imparfait & passé composé. The first video will go though the grammar, the conjugation, and all the tips on these two past tenses to help you understand and remember how and when to use them. The second video will be the actual dictée, a short story written by me, describing everyday life situations conveniently packed with imparfait and passé composé verbs! Boom! Efficient! The dictée will also be read by me, slowly first and then a little faster, with a close up on my face so you can more easily recognize the words and copy the shapes I make to improve your own pronunciation.

 

Become a French language expert

How do you become an expert at anything? By focusing on one thing at a time.

I’ve made sure to categorize and isolate either a verb tense, a verb group, a grammar or vocabulary topic per dictée, so you can effectively focus and interiorize concepts separately, which makes it a lot easier to remember them.

 

Here’s what you’re going to learn

What grammar & conjugation points will each dictée focus on?

Dictée # 1: Present tense

Dictée # 2: Past tenses – imparfait & passé composé

Dictée # 3: Future tenses – futur proche & futur simple

Dictée # 4: Conditional, imparfait, asking questions

Dictée # 5: Imperative form

Dictée # 6: First group verbs all tenses

Dictée # 7: Second group verbs all tenses

Dictée # 8: Third group verbs all tenses

Dictée # 9: Numbers

Dictée # 10: Prepositions

Each dictée is a short story written by me about practical everyday life situations. This means that not only do you get to work on conjugation & grammar drills, but you also improve your conversational skills at the same time: a magic combination for your next trip to France!

 

Grow your confidence talking about practical everyday topics

The dictées will refer to common topics that you are very likely to hear or very likely to use to express yourself such as:

-Traveling to France

-Socializing

-Childhood memories

-Family dynamics

-Everyday life routines

-How to express your ideas, opinions, and dreams

 

Two videos per dictée

First video: key grammar and conjugation reminders explained very clearly so you feel prepared and confident entering each dictée.

Second video: the actual dictée. I’ve made sure to categorize and isolate either a verb tense, a verb group, a grammar or vocabulary topic, so you can effectively focus and interiorize concepts separately, which makes it a lot easier to remember them.

 

And for you challenge lovers over-achievers?

Yes I have prepared something just for you! I have also made 10 audio files, 1 per dictée, so that if you wish to, if you want it extra difficult, if you want to test yourself more deeply, you can solely rely on sound. Indeed there are many occasions in life where we hear a language but we don’t see it: speaking to someone on the phone or listening to the radio for instance.

 

20 videos? 10 audio files? What else?

This new FRENCH DICTÉES online course also comes with written files with both the French text along with the English translation, so that you can evaluate yourself when you’re done taking notes.

To summarize, you’ll be able to use video, audio, and written material.

 

Dictées worked for me, they’ll work for you!

Let me tell you, I LOVE dictées because THEY WORK. And clearly you realize this too and that is smart of you. So now let’s see how something as simple as a dictée can truly help you become a little bit French! Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.

 

Become a monthly member!

My goal is to transform your French language learning experience. This is why I’ve decided to offer you a new way to learn French online and gain access to the French Truly Online School! Actually, more than 1 new way, you’ll have 3 plans to choose from so come and learn French online with me!