From the beginning of her career in 1935 to her death in 1963 and right
up to the present, Édith Piaf has been recognized as unique and iconic.
She is France's most celebrated and mythified singing star across the
world. Récital 1961 explores her most important album: the live
recording of her comeback concert at the Paris Olympia on 29 December
1960, which unveiled her keynote song, 'Non je ne regrette rien' (No
Regrets). It examines the content, context and significance of the
concert in relation to Piaf's career, her life and her celebrity. What
was so special about the performance and why did the ecstatic audiences,
that night and at the subsequent performances in 1961, find it so
powerful and moving? The book dissects the live show, the album and the
songs that feature on it, and at a deeper level their place in the
invention of the public Piaf we know today - asking why, more than a
century after her birth and 60 years after her death, we still remember
her, listen to her and commemorate her around the world.