Jacques Brel alive, well and living in the Third Ward

The Skylight Opera Theatre wants to prove that the songs of Jacques Brel are not only alive and well, but also relevant.

The company will open Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 28. The revue runs through Feb. 20 in the Cabot Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center.

American audiences know Brel, who sold millions of records in Europe, through covers by American artists. Everyone from Sinatra to Streisand recorded versions of one or more of Brel’s romantic ballads.

Jacques Brel was born in Brussels in 1929 and moved to Paris in 1952, where he performed his chansons (lyric-driven French songs) in cabarets and music halls. His songs marry poetry to music, with themes of love, loss, family, death and social injustice. He died in 1978, but survives on disc and now very much on YouTube. He sings in French, mostly, in a passionate, soulful, smoky voice that inspired performers as diverse as Leonard Cohen and Sting.

The Skylight’s production is based on the original 1968 off-Broadway revue and on some of the revisions in the 2006 New York revival. The show marks the Skylight main-stage directing debut of longtime associate artistic director Ray Jivoff. The pianist and music director is Richard Carsey, former Skylight music director and artistic director.

“Brel’s music is gorgeous and thought-provoking,” Jivoff says. “His songs are powerful – some are very romantic, others are rather dark and have surprising twists.”

The anthem-like If We Only Have Love opens and closes the revue. Rod McKuen, pop poet laureate of the 190s, translated this and many Brel songs, including the evergreen If You Go Away (Ne Me Quitte Pas).

The Skylight cast will sing most of them in English, but will render several in alternating French and English verses. Jivoff found a local Belgian-born trombonist who was willing to coach the four singers in the subtleties of  Brel’s Flemish-accented French.

Jivoff says that each song tells a story complete within itself. Many songs build to dramatic conclusions known via the “Brelian crescendo.” The more than two dozen songs in the revue roughly follow Brel’s life, with its tragedies and complexities.

The set, designed by Keith Pitts, re-creates a theater warehouse. Props, such as a wheel and a clock, symbolize elements in the songs.

Jivoff and artistic director Bill Theisen cast the show with three Skylight veterans and one newcomer.

“Three of the four performers are familiar to Milwaukee,” Jivoff says. “Alison Mary Forbes appeared in the Skylight’s production of Rent. I first worked with her when she was 12, doing Caddie Woodlawn at First Stage. Liz Baltes has deep family roots at Skylight – her late father was a music director at the old space on Jefferson. Steve Koehler teaches acting and physics at Milwaukee High School of the Arts, a Skylight partner school. He was in the Skylight productions of Little Shop of Horrors, Spitfire Grill, Floyd Collins and Man of La Mancha. PJ Baccari is making his Skylight debut.”

Tickets for Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, are $22.50 – $65 at the Broadway Theatre Center box office, 158 N. Broadway, (414) 291-7800 and online.