Not the least astonishing moment of President Barack Obama’s recent trip to Europe (and for my more serious thoughts on that diplomatic voyage, click here) was when Michelle Obama met Carla Bruni and appeared her peer in every way, not at all outclassed. Ms. Bruni, of course, is the Italian-born French model and chanteuse who last year married French President Nicolas Sarkozy and, soon after, dazzled, nay seduced, every world leader she met at diplomatic soires. Mrs. Obama’s one-upmanship in London in no way shoves Ms. Bruni aside—the pairing marked, more, the reemergence of a French-American cultural entente, and we are all the headier for it.
I first saw Ms. Bruni sing on David Letterman’s show a month or so ago, when she was in the States promoting her new CD, Comme Si de Rien N’tait (As If It Never Happened). She was so charming and elegant, yet so frisky—OK, she was such a knock-out—that she had Dave stumbling and sent me to order her disc from amazon. (I must not have been the only one, since, I noticed that it was ranked #25 on the U.S. pop charts, even though, except for one song, the album is sung entirely in French).
I’ve listened to this album several times since then, and even without visual accompaniment (the photos on the CD jacket are fuzzy and obscure), it’s a delight. Her voice is breathy without being too breathy; she keeps the melody, takes it on the occasional unexpected excursion, without making a big deal of it; she exudes a furtive passion, an insouciant sensuality. Her band is lively in a cabaret sort of way, the arrangements have lots of neat hooks, and the sound quality is very good.
