Not every rainbow ends in a crock of gold

I was watching the opening round of Andrew Lloyd Webber's casting competition Over The Rainbow the other night (he's looking for a Dorothy for a new Wizard of Oz stage show in the West End). This round was the whittling down from 9,000 aspirants to a long list of 50, so you saw a lot of losers (some clearly losers fromt he outset, and some you regretted).

I liked the one (we didn't find out her name) whose audition piece was sung in French (I assume she was from a Francophone country): it was, as the brief extract made plain, Pour Que Tu M'Aimes Encore by Jean-Jacques Goldman, which was a hit (in French-speaking places) for Celine Dion. Here is her original video for it:



Give her decent material and she's a really good singer.

Of course, Celine D isn't the only terrific female vocalist J-J G has worked with. Here is my favourite of all his songs, a duet with Sirima.



And it was only when I read the comments for that video clip that I realised Sirima was no longer with us. Her wikipedia entry is a short, sharp shock, though.