Bitton Delivers Touching Tribute to Piaf

Edith Piaf was obviously not present at the Wilshire Theater Saturday night for Raquel Bitton’s show, “Edith Piaf . . . Her Story . . . Her Songs,” But she was definitely there in spirit.

Performing with a full orchestra, the French Moroccan-born Bitton was garbed, as Piaf often was, in an unadorned black dress; her dramatic hand movements were also modeled after Piaf. And, above all, her precise vocal articulation, with its rolled Rs and crisp Parisian enunciation, was a virtual mirror-image of the legendary French artist’s approach to the language.

That said, however, Bitton’s performance never verged into mimicry or, for that matter, into an impression. The timbre of her voice is actually quite different from that of Piaf (who died at 47 in 1963), and what Bitton had to offer was her own, uniquely personal tribute to the woman often called the Little Sparrow. Singing with consummate vocal control and a musicality that blended her affecting twists and turns of phrase into perfect vehicles for the often touching lyrics, Bitton delivered a performance that would surely have been touching even to someone who’d never heard of Piaf.

Bitton further illuminated her warm and loving presentation with a between-songs narrative describing the often distressing circumstances of a tragic life. The rich program of 26 songs encompassed many numbers not especially familiar to American audiences. But classic pieces such as “Sous le ciel de Paris,” “Milord,” “Non, Je ne regrette rien” and, of course, “La vie en rose” triggered ecstatic applause from a packed crowd.