Starmania is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

/Québécois

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 rock opera

Rock opera

A rock opera is a work of rock music that presents a storyline told over multiple parts, songs or sections in the manner of opera. A rock opera differs from a conventional rock album, which usually includes songs that are not unified by a common theme or narrative. More recent developments include...

 written in 1976 with music by Michel Berger

Michel Berger

Michel Berger , born Michel Jean Hamburger, was a very successful French singer and songwriter. He was a central figure of France's pop music scene for two decades both as a singer and as a songwriter for well-known French artists like his wife France Gall, Françoise Hardy and Johnny Hallyday...

 and lyrics by Luc Plamondon

Luc Plamondon

Luc Plamondon, OC, CQ is a French-Canadian lyricist.-Career:Plamondon has written for many artists, notably the Québécois singers Bruno Pelletier, Diane Dufresne, Robert Charlebois, Céline Dion, Ginette Reno, Fabienne Thibeault, Martine St. Clair, and Garou, as well as the French singers Julien...

. Some of its songs have passed into mainstream Francophone

Francophone

The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....

 pop culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

.

Genesis

In 1978, its first recording was released (in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

), sub-titled Starmania, ou la passion de Johnny Rockfort selon les évangiles télévisés ("Starmania, or the Passion of Johnny Rockfort According to the Televised Gospels") with the leading roles filled by Daniel Balavoine

Daniel Balavoine

Daniel Balavoine was a French singer and songwriter. He was hugely popular in the French-speaking world, and inspired many singers in the 1980s, such as Jean-Jacques Goldman, and Michel Berger, his closest friend...

, Claude Dubois

Claude Dubois

Claude André Dubois is a Canadian singer-songwriter.Dubois was an early star of the francophone musical Starmania...

, Diane Dufresne

Diane Dufresne

Diane Dufresne, CQ is a singer and painter, and has sung a number of classics of Quebec repertoire of popular songs....

, Nanette Workman

Nanette Workman

Nanette Joan Workman is today a singer-songwriter, actress and author who has been based in Quebec, Canada during much of her career. She was raised by musician parents in Jackson, Mississippi where she began her first performances. She mainly performs in French although raised as a native...

, France Gall

France Gall

France Gall is a popular French yé-yé singer.Gall was married to, and had a successful singing career in partnership with, French singer-songwriter Michel Berger....

, Eric Esteve

Eric Esteve

Éric Estève is a French author, composer and singer.Originally discovered by Véronique Sanson at the age of 17, Estève recorded on Epic...

 and Fabienne Thibeault

Fabienne Thibeault

Fabienne Thibeault is a Canadian singer. She is particularly known for her role in Starmania. Thibeault has released numerous albums over her career. She has been the recipient of two Félix Awards.-History:...

.

In 1979 the show was given its theatrical debut in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, starring Balavoine, Étienne Chicot, Dufresne, Gall, and Thibeault, followed by Canadian productions in 1980 and 1986 and French revivals in 1988 and throughout the 1990s.

In 1992, an English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 version of the show was created with the release of the album Tycoon, with lyrics by Tim Rice

Tim Rice

Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...

, and starring Celine Dion

Celine Dion

Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...

, Nina Hagen

Nina Hagen

Nina Hagen is a German singer and actress.-Early years:Hagen was born as Catharina Hagen in the former East Berlin, East Germany, the daughter of Hans Hagen , a scriptwriter, and Eva-Maria Hagen, an actress and singer...

, Peter Kingsbery

Peter Kingsbery

Peter Kingsbery is an American singer songwriter who cofounded the band Cock Robin in the 1980s. He grew up in Austin where he studied classical music...

, Cyndi Lauper

Cyndi Lauper

Cynthia Ann Stephanie "Cyndi" Lauper is an American singer, songwriter, actress and LGBT rights activist. She achieved success in the mid-1980s with the release of the album She's So Unusual and became the first female singer to have four top-five singles released from one album...

, Willy Deville

Willy DeVille

Willy DeVille was an American singer and songwriter. During his thirty-five year career, first with his band Mink DeVille and later on his own, Deville created original songs rooted in traditional American musical styles. He worked with collaborators from across the spectrum of contemporary...

, and Tom Jones

Tom Jones (singer)

Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

 in the principal roles on the recording. The American premiere of Tycoon, with English lyrics, was produced at the UTEP Dinner Theatre in El Paso, Texas

El Paso, Texas

El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...

 in 1996, with Plamondon in attendance. It was staged in Paris alternatively with the French version for a few months.

In 2004, Starmania was honoured as a MasterWork by the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada

Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada

The Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada was a charitable non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the preservation of Canada’s audio-visual heritage, and to facilitating access to regional and national collections through partnerships with members of Canada's audio-visual community...

. (video clip).

Brief plot outline

In the near future, Monopolis, the capital of the recently-united Occident, is terrorized by the Black Stars, a gang headed by Johnny Rockfort, who dances to the tune of Sadia, a student-agitator, originally from the upper crust, who cross-dresses at night and descends into the underground to hand out orders. They meet at the Underground Café, under the amused gaze of Marie-Jeanne, the robotic waitress.

Above this underground café stands the Golden Tower, a 121-floor building, the top of which is the office of Zéro Janvier, a billionaire getting into politics by running for the presidency of the Occident. He bases his electoral campaign on a return to order and on the construction of the new atomic world. Zéro Janvier thus becomes the sworn enemy of Johnny Rockfort and the Black Stars. It is in this framework that three parallel love affairs take shape and come undone: the impossible love of Marie-Jeanne for Ziggy, a young androgynous and mythomaniac record dealer; the sensational romance of Zéro Janvier and Stella Spotlight, a sex symbol who has just said farewell to the silver screen; and the passion of Johnny Rockfort and Cristal, a true nexus of the plot.

Cristal, the host and star of a TV show called “Starmania,” gets a call from Sadia offering her a clandestine interview with Johnny Rockfort, whose face no one knows. The get-together takes place at the Underground Café. For Cristal and Johnny, it is love at first sight. They go off together; therefore, Sadia has lost her hold over Johnny. Cristal decides to become the spokeswoman for the Black Stars, transmitting pirate messages by means of a neutron camera that lets her take over television frequencies.

Sadia, furious with jealousy, denounces Johnny and Cristal to Zéro Janvier on the evening that he is celebrating his engagement with Stella Spotlight at Naziland, a gigantic revolving discothèque above Monopolis. The Black Stars have chosen this very evening to set off a bomb in the Golden Tower.

Zéro Janvier’s men hunt the Black Stars. Cristal is hit and dies in Johnny’s arms. The shadow of Johnny Rockfort will darken the victory of Zéro Janvier, elected president of the Occident. Terrorism against totalitarianism, two living forces in opposition, two dangers that threaten the world.

Stella Spotlight, revolted by power, returns to her dream of immortality; Marie-Jeanne, having had enough of the underground world, heads off in search of sunlight.

French version

• "Ouverture"
• "Quand on arrive en ville"
• "Complainte de la serveuse automate"
• "Le blues du businessman"
• "Un garçon pas comme les autres"
• "La chanson de Ziggy"
• "Monopolis"
• "Travesti"
• "Petite musique terrienne"
• "Ce soir on danse à Naziland"
• "Banlieue nord"
• "Les adieux d'un sex symbol"
• "Les uns contre les autres"
• "Quand on n'a plus rien à perdre"
• "Ego trip"
• "Le monde est stone"
• "S.O.S. d'un terrien en détresse"
• "Le rêve de Stella Spotlight"
• "Besoin d'amour"

English version

• "Ziggy"
• "The World Is Stone
  The World Is Stone
  "The World Is Stone" is a single by American singer, Cyndi Lauper. This is the English version of the French song "Le Monde est stone" , which was part of the Starmania musical and has been most notably associated with Fabienne Thibeault, Marie Carmen and Céline Dion.The song was composed by Michel...
  
  " (Le Monde est stone 1978)
• "Only the Very Best"
• "You have to learn to live alone"
• "Tonight we dance - extravagance!"
• "The Businessman's Blues"

Albums (all in French unless stated)

• 1978 Starmania - Original Version
• 1979 Starmania - The Show (double album)
• 1980 Starmania Made in Quebec (LP)
• 1988 Starmania 88
• 1992 Tycoon - (in English), also released as Starmania - Version anglaise
• 1994 Starmania - Mogador 94
• 1998 Starmania - 20th Anniversary (double CD)