Francesca Solleville

Francesca Solleville was born in Périgueux (Dordogne) to a Gascon father and Italian mother. At home, her mother played piano but Francesca was passionate for French literature while learning traditional songs (Schubert, Debussy...). In Paris, she studied humanities at the Sorbonne where she obtained a licentiate, and studied under the singer Marya Freud. She sang in the choirs of Radio France.

From 1958 Solleville gave up lyrical songs to perform her preferred composers in the cabarets of the Rive-Gauche of Paris. Influenced by Germaine Montéro and encouraged by Léo Ferré, she was directed by Jacques Douai to the record company Boîte à musique. There she recorded her first 45 rpm single in 1959: Francesca Solleville chante Aragon and Mac Orlan.

She sang in numerous cabarets: at l'Écluse, where she sang with Barbara, at La Contrescarpe where Elsa Triolet and Louis Aragon came to hear her sing, at La Colombe where she met Pierre Perret and at Port du Salut (cabaret) where Christine Sèvres, Jacques Debronckart, Maurice Fanon, Pia Colombo and Pierre Louki also sang. In 1959, at la Mutualité, she sang two songs by Louis Aragon (La rose du premier de l'an and Un homme passe sous la fenêtre et chante). Also in 1959, she took part in collective recordings (chansons enfantines as a 45 rpm, chansons d'enfants as a 33⅓ rpm 10"), and she dedicated her first 45rpm to Aragon and Pierre Mac Orlan.

In 1960, for her second 45 rpm, she sang the works of Luc Bérimont, Aragon et Ferré. In 1961, she sang Mac Orlan for a new 45rpm.

In May 1962, Solleville released her first 10" album, intitulé Récital n°1, where she sange the poets Paul Fort (La Marine, set to music by Georges Brassens), Charles Baudelaire, Louis Aragon and Jean Ferrat (J'entends, j'entends).

In the 1960s, she recorded the songs of Hélène Martin, Georges Coulonges, Yani Spanos, Philippe-Gérard, Serge Rezvani, and the poems of Guillaume Apollinaire and Jean Genet. She sang in the film Dragées au poivre (1963). In 1964, she received the Grand Prix of the Académie Charles-Cros for her Récital n°2 of 1963.

She confirmed her role as a singer of activist songs against Nazism, Francoism and the Vietnam War. Equally, she supported the workers' cause (Le Chant des ouvriers). In 1971, she recorded with Marcel Mouloudji and Armand Mestral La Commune en chantant, a homage to 100 years of the Paris Commune. In 1975, she released Chants d'exil et de lutte based on the texts of Pablo Neruda. In 1988, she celebrated the bicentenary of the French Revolution with Musique, citoyennes!. Allain Leprest wrote the words of her album Al Dente (1994). In 2004, she published her autobiography, A piena voce, written with the collaboration of Marc Legras. In 2009, she celebrated 50 years as a singer. Véronique Sauger's book, Portraits croisés, Francesca Solleville, Allain Leprest (Ed. Les points sur les i) was published in December 2009.

Source: Article "Francesca Solleville" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.