2023-09-13 16:21:59
On September 8, shortly after 9 p.m., Asia broke down. In the family living room of his small town near Bordeaux, the CM2 student stares, misty-eyed, at the young choristers giving voice on the pitch of the Stade de France before the kick-off of the opening match of the Rugby World Cup between the Blues and the All Blacks. “My daughter cried in front of the television when she saw them, she couldn’t help it,” describes her mother, Cora. Because obviously, she sees that children can sing on the lawn, but not her. »
The 10-year-old child is one of around 7,000 young people integrated into a project announced in February 2022 by the organizers, “the choir scrum”, and whose realization in this Rugby World Cup provokes controversy after controversy. The basic idea? Have the anthems of the 20 selections performed by choirs of 300 young people deployed on the lawns. In fact, most of the chants are now recorded after a veto from World Rugby to see so many young people entering the pitches of the enclosures, and the rendering has tensed viewers and certain observers since the start of the competition.
The organizing committee proposes reworked versions to the federations
The reason ? A mush of sound in several cases, including “La Marseillaise” and the Italian anthem the next day, linked to the sound superposition of the choirs in canon, the voices of the players and the singing of the public. “It’s a technical problem, which can be resolved by better balancing the live sound,” complains a music teacher involved in the project. It could be anticipated, there are people whose job it is. »
“The organizer realizes the failures on the day of the match and he reacts suddenly because part of the public is outraged,” continues Nicolas Ducrocq, one of the main contributors to the Facebook page “La melee of choirs” which brings together adults angry against the trial and error of the project. Several parents explain to Le Parisien that their children have, for example, never sung in polyphony during rehearsals. A “canon”, removed by the organizing committee from this Thursday and the match between the Blues and Uruguay in Villeneuve-d’Ascq.
France 2023 will also now give the selections the choice between this revisited interpretation of the choristers, or a classic instrumental version. The Blues opted for the version with the children’s voices.
“We are in the process of proposing them to the different teams to get their feelings,” explains the president of France 2023, Jacques Rivoal. “We hope that all federations choose these recorded versions, in line with the expectations of fans and teams,” continues the general director of the organizing committee, Julien Collette.
“It’s an unspeakable fiasco”
“I really hope they will play his version at the stadium,” explains Cora, whose daughter Asia is due to attend the match between South Africa and Romania on Sunday in Bordeaux. Otherwise, I really fear her reaction if she doesn’t have her anthem playing before the match. She was fully into the project and her mistress was so involved…”
“Children will perhaps still be penalized in what is an unspeakable fiasco,” regrets Nicolas Ducrocq. The organization assures that all the children involved in the project will go, as planned, to the stage where their anthem was to be played. “Anyway, the damage has been done since they canceled the children’s coming to the pitch,” says Olivier Mallet, parent of a young participant from the Lyon region. They did not keep their word. »
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