The great come-back of Maurice Yvain :

Ever since the film by Alain Resnais which revealed to the world Lambert Wilson’s talents as a singer, among other things that we will discuss later, we knew Maurive Yvain was fashionable. Perhaps not as much as Jacques Offenbach, but we knew that his definitive come-back would only be a matter of years – or rather, centuries, which will now inevitably follow one another, with his biggest hits dating from twenties of the previous century. 

With the support of such young talents as the French conductor Victor Jacob who was to present extracts from his operettas between December 10 and 13 in Châtellerault, Marennes, Saint-Junien and at the Auditorium Theater of Poitiers at the head of the New Aquitaine Chamber Orchestra (postponement dates to come) or emeritus companies such as the Frivolités Parisiennes , we can now be sure of one thing: the name Maurice Yvain, the "Haydn of the operetta" (a phrase coined by Resnais), author of the greatest hits of the “Années Folles”, the Roaring Twenties (Ta Bouche, Là-Haut, Pas sur la bouche , Bouche à Bouche and the ineffable Yes!, between 1922 and 1928), is on everyone's lips. 

What a long road for this composer, adulated one hundred years ago in the most fashionable theatres Paris had to offer, rubbing shoulders on a daily basis with the television stars of the 1930s (Jean Gabin, for whom he wrote an unforgettable song in Duvivier’s La Belle Equipe, and Suzy Delair, famously accomplished singer, in Clouzot’s famous L’Assassin habite au 21, before falling into relative oblivion until the world cinema made him the composer of "the" most cult scene of French cinema of the 2000s. We need not tell you more, you will recognise it instantly:

Photos :
Maurice Yvain © Coll. Hervé David
Maurice Yvain © Boris Lipnitzki / Roger Viollet

Vocal score covers : 

Ta Bouche (1922 - Théâtre Daunou)
Libretto by Yves Mirande
lyrics d'Albert Willemetz
© Éditions Salabert

Là-Haut (1923 - Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens)
Libretto by Yves Mirande et Gustave Quinson
lyrics d'Albert Willemetz 
© Éditions Salabert

Pas sur la bouche (1925 - Théâtre de l'Apollo)
libretto by André Barde 
© Éditions Salabert

Yes! (1928 - Théâtre des Capucines)
libretto by Pierre Soulaine et René Pujol
© Éditions Salabert

Posters and film images:

L'assassin habite au 21 (1942)
Henri-Georges Clouzot

La Belle équipe (1936)
Julien Duvivier

Pas sur la bouche (2003)
Alain Resnais