Melissa Errico is one busy singer. Today, Jan. 22, she releases her single of the standard “Happiness Is Just A Thing Called Joe.” Then on Thursday, Jan. 28, it’s the second date of a three-part concert series that began in October, “Il Parle, Elle Chante – Love, Desire & Mystery” – at the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in Manhattan.
In the series, Errico – who makes her home in Bronxville with tennis star/commentator Patrick McEnroe and their three girls – teams with The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnick for a program of music and conversation on the great French obsession – l’amour fou, or crazy, overpowering, all-consuming love.
Part II of the three-part series focuses on the desire of the title, exploring the French art of seduction and its American responses. In particular, it will dive into the ways sex has become entangled in other matters of pleasure and life. Appetites for love and food, a classic French pairing, take up much of the evening, with songs from Adam Gopnik’s musical “Our Table” and the Broadway adaptation of “The Baker’s Wife.” The second half of the evening focuses on the French duo of seduction and fashion, with selections from French art songs and the musicals “Funny Face” and “Coco.”
Having considered how love becomes desire and how desire is cloaked in mystery, the pair will plumb how the mystery of desire reveals the madness of love again in Part III on May 6.
Errico previously collaborated with FIAF in 2019, curating the popular CinéSalon series “Summer of Michel Legrand” that honored the great French composer.
Part II of “Il Parle, Elle Chante’’ will be streamed live 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28 at FIAF’s Florence Gould Theatre on East 59th St., with Tedd Firth at the piano. For more, visit https://fiaf.org/event/2020-10-errico-gopnik/.
