Lara Fabian looks back on one of the craziest experiences of her career: the day she sang for some Goodfellas – with a capital A…
“It’s one evening when I meet Scorsese…”: these are the words with which Lara Fabian begins to tell her story during an interview for the Canal+ show Clique, opposite Mouloud Achour. But be careful, this is not a simple anecdote but an incredible moment that will remain engraved in his memory forever. When the world of song meets that of cinema, in a New York restaurant, or rather when Lara Fabian sings in front of the famous actors of Goodfellas: that’s what it’s like.
“It was one evening when I met Scorsese in one of those super-famous New York Italian restaurants, where Tommy Mottola, who was the boss of Sony at the time, invited me. He introduced me to Scorsese and then, laughing, he said to me: ‘You know, at the moment, I have two or three friends in New York, if the little one sings tomorrow, I’ll bring them to you.’”
The little one is Lara Fabian so, 27 years old at the time, who had just signed with Sony. Martin Scorsese and Tommy Mottola have been talking about her and have an idea.
“So I’m in the studio and I’m getting ready to sing Adagio, my version of Tomaso Albinoni, in English, and Tommy just goes, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute kid, I’ve got some friends coming over.’ He opens the door and really comes in [Robert] De Niro, [Joe] Pesci, Ray Liotta, [Al] Pacino, all his friends. And he goes, ‘We’re going to have an audience today.’ And there, I can tell you, you better go into overdrive”, continues Lara Fabian in front of a Mouloud Achour stunned.
Once seated, the Freedmen, the real ones, are now ready to listen to him: “I was behind my microphone, they started the instrumental, and I changed Adagio. It was my first audience for this song. I will never forget this moment.”
Joe Pesci, in tears
But this moment takes on even more significance when one of the actors actually bursts into tears: “Pesci in tears, who was going through a difficult time, he said to me: ‘That’s exactly how I feel, I’m going through a divorce.’ He was not well at that time in his life.”
She continues: “And so all the Goodfellas were there. I will never forget this moment.”
Warner Bros. Pictures
But this incredible encounter does not stop there: a dinner at Scalinatella follows, pasta obviously as pointed out Mouloud Achour.
“Afterwards we all went to eat at Scalinatella together. But that evening, on the left, there was Madonna, on the right, there was Pavarotti, and I was just a child. Even though I was already 27 years old, it was my huge contract signed with Sony, with this incredible display of energy, of strength. I still experienced some incredible things.”
Amazing, that’s for sure. We would have liked to see that.
Watch the singer tell her story below:
The Clique show can be found from Monday to Friday at 7:45 p.m. unencrypted on Canal+.