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Stadium plans revealed for once-in-a-generation Swiss wine festival

This is what the lakefront at Vevey will look like in summer 2019 when the Vaud city hosts Switzerland’s largest and oldest wine festival, held only once every 20 years.

Published: 23 March 2017 10:04 CET
Stadium plans revealed for once-in-a-generation Swiss wine festival
Photo: Fête des Vignerons
In a press conference on Wednesday the committee of the Fête des Vignerons unveiled the designs for the main auditorium on the Place du Marché, which will seat 20,000 spectators, 4,000 more than in previous editions of the historic festival.
 
While accommodating a larger audience for the festival's centrepiece spectacle, the arena nevertheless aims to be an intimate space, with big screens helping to bring spectators closer to the action, organizers told the press. 
 
The auditorium will be constructed over four months from the beginning of 2019, ready for a six-week rehearsal period in May, before the festival kicks off on July 20th, running to August 11th.
 
Vevey's huge market square will be transformed. Photo: Fête des Vignerons
 
Last held in 1999, the Fête des Vignerons has its origins in the 17th century when agricultural association the Brotherhood of Winegrowers held a yearly pageant in Vevey, which is located at the foot of one of Switzerland’s oldest wine-growing regions, the Lavaux. 
 
This developed into the first proper festival in 1797, held on the Place du Marché, which aimed to celebrate winegrowing, encourage winegrowers to improve their techniques and reward the best vineyard workers in a coronation ceremony.  
 
Due to political unrest in the canton of Vaud, it wasn’t until 22 years later that the next festival was held, starting a once-a-generation tradition that has held to this day. 
 
 
At the time Unesco said the festival was “part of Vevey's living traditions” and that it “reinforces community spirit, encourages artistic life and stimulates winegrowers' knowledge”.
 
Details of the 2019 edition’s centrepiece spectacle have not yet been revealed, but visitors should expect a theatrical celebration of the traditions of local wine growing through the ages.
 
Locals can even get the chance to take part, since the festival committee is looking for volunteers to act as extras in the spectacle, who can sign up here: fdv2019.ch/figurants
 

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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