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Model chanteuse sings pop lyrics

Show-stopper Frühlingová capitalizes on French charm

By Michael Heitmann
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
January 9th, 2008 issue

Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
"Company Iva Frühlingová" is gearing up for the singer's spring concerts, promoting her video clip and redesigning her Web pages.
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Mention the dreaded model-turned-singer category to Iva Frühlingová and her beaming smile turns into a quizzical frown.
The 25-year-old is very serious about her music — she wants it to stand its ground on its own. Combining impeccable beauty, French charm and bright, pop lyrics, Frühlingová easily won the hearts of listeners in 2003. Her debut album, Litvínov, even landed a No. 1 hit in Francophone Belgium.
Frühlingová’s second album, Baby Doll, now seems a mere intermezzo, produced by then-husband Richard Krajčo in Bratislava. For awhile, stories of her modern-day, fairy-tale marriage to and subsequent divorce from the Kryštof frontman made headlines, while her music all but disappeared from the limelight.
Last autumn, the French-singing Frühlingová returned to Paris to record Strip Twist, her recently released third album. Apparently, the help of a veteran French production team headed by Jerome Degey made all the difference.
It was mid-November and though the Strip Twist promotion bandwagon had just started rolling, interview requests were already coming in by the handful. But no manager accompanied the rising star to keep an eye on the time, or help with cigarettes that failed to ignite — a waiter has to come to the rescue.
Without a “star minder,” Frühlingová appears a little timid at first, but once she is asked to compare her current album with previous ones, her eyes light up.
“I have a feeling that it’s really different; it’s poppy, faster, happier. The producer really knows what kind of music I like. We had a lot of fun, and I think that feeling is passed on in the music.”
Paris is a second home to Frühlingová, who left her native Litvínov for the Seine metropolis at age 14 after winning a modeling contest. The experience was not as harsh as it sounds, says Frühlingová, who attended an American school in Paris.
Frühlingová claims she was never 100 percent devoted to modeling, but it helped her pay the bills and allowed her to move to Paris at an early age, a city she had always dreamed of visiting.
The French capital’s vibrant music scene quickly enraptured the teenager. Frühlingová soon talked her way into her first-ever performance with the band Turnover.
“I asked whether I could visit a band rehearsal, sing a few background vocals, sing one song, then another. And in no time we played as a band in cafés and basements, and had a lot of fun,” she says.
Philippe Boudoux, attaché at the French Embassy in Prague, then asked Frühlingová to perform at the opening ceremony of the French Film Festival in November 2004.
“It was shortly after the release of Litvínov, so she wasn’t well known in either the Czech Republic or France yet,” Boudoux says. “The set was very acoustic. Only one guitarist accompanied her. It was a very intimate and very sweet concert.”
Frühlingová was “still a bit shy,” but the audience very much appreciated her performance, discovering her talent, Boudoux says.
“She is one of the ambassadors of the French language in the Czech Republic. Of course, we are very proud of her, and we support her as if she were a French citizen,” Boudoux says.
When Frühlingová returned to the film festival’s improvised stage at the main post office on Jindřišská street in 2006, many in the audience came only to see her sing.
“She wasn’t shy anymore, but confident. Her performance was very professional and she was becoming a real show girl,” Boudoux says.
She is still a little nervous when kicking off a concert on stage, Frühlingová says.
“But as soon as I get the feeling that the audience reacts, that it entertains them, and they share the experience, it makes me happy,” she says.
Frühlingová has worked with young French artists, singers like Benjamin Biolay and Raphael, who have now become the leaders of the so-called new French scene, Boudoux says. The lyrics are very important to the singers — lyrics are linked to reality, chronicling personal lives, and sometimes a sense of black humor, he says.
“It’s about the life of a 25-year-old woman today in Prague, or in Paris, and her life is not completely different from the lives of the listeners,” Boudoux says. “She speaks directly to this audience.”
Even though closely linked to France’s Nouvelle Scene, Frühlingová remains true to her origins. As a tribute to her country, she has included two songs in Czech on her new CD, “Struny” (Strings) and “Animální hlavolam” (Sensual Teaser).
Czech music critic Vladimír Vlasák’s reaction to these bonus tracks is less than patriotic, however.
“To me it seems a bit superfluous, but the song is about her life and that’s fine. I prefer the French songs, though,” Vlasák told the Czech News Agency.
“A Czech girl was definitely somewhat exotic for the French. Then, when I moved back to the Czech Republic, I became the exotic girl out of France,” Frühlingová says.
“The French think we live in Siberia in small snow-covered huts, short of building an igloo,” the singer jokes.
Boudoux says Frühlingová has a “very sweet, very charming, accent” from her travels.
“This is something exotic, but you cannot say for sure which part of the world she is from.”
Although Frühlingová has no intention of returning to France anytime soon, relations with the Czech press turned sour after her 2006 divorce from Krajčo and the ensuing media onslaught.
In her song “Animální hlavolam,” Frühlingová strikes back.
“I try not to read [the tabloids], because they meddle with things that are none of their business,” Frühlingová says. “It’s the journalists’ work, but it’s sad that these stories then influence all the others who claim not to read them but still do. Whenever anything happens [and is reported in the press], friends call me saying I had done this or that. It’s difficult.”
On her latest album, listeners are in for a surprise. Frühlingová pulled a lot of strings to team up with 73-year-old French actor Pierre Richard on “La Chanson de Pierre.” Comedies starring Richard rose to fame in the former Czechoslovakia during the 1970s and ’80s, at a time when few foreign films pass censorship.
“I was a little afraid when I heard they were singing a duet,” Boudoux says. “Pierre Richard is a clown. He’s an athlete and a very funny actor, but not a singer. But now that I’ve heard the song I am convinced Iva is an actress. This is like a play. It’s like two actors singing together.”
Since most of the Pierre Richard movies released in the Czech Republic are dubbed, many people have not heard his actual voice. But Boudoux, a childhood fan of the actor’s comedies while growing up in France, confirmed it really is Richard.
Frühlingová says it was difficult to get in touch with Richard at first, but then she found friends who knew him.
“We then pulled off a swindle: I asked them what kind of music he listens to. They said Brazilian music and jazz, and I like that a lot,” she says.
Frühlingová and producer Degey then created a song that fit Richard’s tastes perfectly before revealing their intentions to him.
The anecdote goes to show Frühlingová’s perseverance to get what she wants, once she has made up her mind.
“Since I always wanted to make music, I put a lot of effort into it. I have music at heart,” says the singer.
But fortune has been kind to her as well, she adds.
Still on her to-do list: a thorough Web-page redesign, followed by a spring concert series, and the release of a new video clip.
Music production and its meanderings, affectionately dubbed “company Iva Frühlingová” by the singer, keep the self-confessed tomboy busy.

Michael Heitmann can be reached at mheitmann@praguepost.com


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