A Soprano concert in audio description for the visually impaired, a first in France

“It’s magnificent to be able to do this, it’s a source of pride for me,” says Soprano in the middle of his supercharged concert on Saturday near Angers. Visually impaired fans benefited from live “audio description”, a first in France.

Saturday evening during the concert at the Arena Loire Trélazé, as part of the Star Hunters tour, around ten visually impaired or blind spectators were equipped with headphones and a receiver allowing them to listen to the audio descriptor while enjoying the music of the Marseille rapper, known to be sensitive to the cause of disability. “Usually, when I attend a concert, it’s a friend or my wife who whispers in my ear the most memorable moments,” Jean-Christophe Guyon, a 57-year-old musician, told AFP. suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, who only has peripheral vision in his left eye.

“Not only is it not smooth but it can also disturb those around you,” he continues, delighted that his wife sitting next to him can “fully enjoy” the concert. Laëtitia Prin, 24, co-manager of a consulting company in the field of visual accessibility, suffers from the same genetic disease. But for her part she only has central vision and not at all peripheral. “My first concert was Big Flo and Oli,” she remembers. It was difficult for me to follow the movements of the artists on stage and sometimes the spectators would start laughing without me knowing why. Audio description allows you to better experience the moment.

At the Arena Loire, this unprecedented mission for a current music concert was carried out by Morgan Renault, 37, author and narrator of audio description. She has been practicing this unique profession for 13 years, mainly in the world of cinema, audiovisual, theater and more recently dance. “My goal is to be as precise and graphic as possible so that these people can have the same experience as the clairvoyants, without encroaching on the words of Soprano,” he explains. The objective is to describe the singer's “grandiose and ambitious” scenography, to tell how he is dressed, how his dancers move on stage or how the audience interacts with the musicians and singers, called “backers”. ".

The unique audio description operation was initiated by the Visio foundation, based in Angers, specializing in help and assistance for visually impaired children and adults. “Our goal is to provide access to all forms of artistic expression and there is still a long way to go,” explains Pascale Humbert, its director. We do a lot of audio description for films but have never experienced a concert of this nature before. The constraint is the same: knowing how to choose the right terms in a very short time.”

To prepare his narration, financed by Crédit Mutuel, the audio describer was able to view a recording of the Soprano concert, particularly visually dense, including arrival in the air from a spaceship, giant screens saturated with bright colors, pyrotechnic effects and wild choreographies. “I prepared the framework for the first part and for the second, I went there instinctively, sensing the opportune moments to speak without polluting the concert,” says Morgan Renaud, microphone in hand and headphones screwed onto the ears, as focused as the artists who deploy all their energy on stage. Above all, I hope that this experience will be repeated.