It has been an amazing journey for Lady Gaga from her leading roles in A Star is Born and The House of Gucci to performing Jazz & Piano at the Park MGM Hotel in Las Vegas to now touring the world with The Chromatica Ball
Story by Terry Check
With 100 million followers on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and nearly 32billion streams, the Queen of Pop dominates social media more than any other person today. The multi-talented celebrity recreated a public persona with mesmerizing roles in A Star is Born and The House of Gucci, and with stage performances ranging from passionate love in Jazz & Piano to sci-fi persona in The Chromatica Ball. The avant-garde celebrity captivates with her bold red-carpet appearances, still remembering the meat dress at the MTV Award sand the enlarged egg sculpture at the Grammys.
Relatively unknown for many years, Lady Gaga, birth name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta of Italian ancestry, began playing the piano as a youngster and as a teenager performing at open mic nights while attending music and acting schools during the day. In 2005, she recorded a few songs and played gigs around New York City with the local SG Band from NYU. After dropping out of school in her second year at NYU and networking the NYC music scene, she collaborated with music producer, Rob Fusari who started calling her “Lady Gaga” from the Queen’s song “Radio Ga Ga”. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was then re born as Lady Gaga.
Music success did not come easy. After recording with Def Jam Recordings, she was dropped after three months. The struggling singer paid her bills by wait res sing during the day and performing at neo-burlesque shows at night. While Fusari was still promoting Gaga, recording executive Vincent Herbert signed Gaga to his label Streamline Records followed by a music publishing deal with Sony/ATV. While writing songs for Britney Spears and the Pussycat Dolls, Gaga demonstrated her singing talent and decided to move to Los Angeles to work on her debut album, The Fame released in 2008.The album was an amazing success reaching number one in several countries with the best-selling single in the world for2009.
FILM: Fast forward to 2018 with the release of the block-buster movie, A Star Is Born staring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. The movie story line of Ally’s rise to fame seems to mirror the real-life story of Lady Gaga. The country rock singer, Jackson “Jack” Maine (Cooper) stops by a drag bar for a couple of drinks while Ally (Gaga), await ress, song writer, and singer, performs a tribute to the French singer, Edith Piaf. Captivated by Ally’s singing and her hand-written lyrics to a song called “Shallow”, Jack invites Ally to sing at his next concert (live audience at the Greek Theater). Ally’s song and singing starts her rise to fame and tragedy in the film.
Considering the original and two subsequent remakes of A Star is Born, Janet Gaynor in the30’s, Judy Garland in the50’s and Barbara Streisand in the 70’s,Bradley Cooper managed to secure his directorial debut foregoing a salary in lieu of a back-end deal should the film make a profit. Focusing on directing Copper did not initially plan on acting in the film, but the studio changed his mind. Other leading ladies such as Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna and Shakira were considered, but Lady Gaga loved the script and the easy-going personality of Bradley Cooper. Reaching out to Lukas Nelson, son of Willie Nelson, Lady Gaga and Nelson wrote songs together with soundtracks by Gaga and Copper for the 2018 release of the album, “A Star is Born” winning the Academy Award for Best Music (Original Song), “Shallow”.
Stage: Lady Gaga embraces performing whether acting on set or singing on stage. Her life is a performance, breaking away from yesterday, and always rebranding herself. Her latest album, Chromatica, is a compilation of Gaga’s failed love affairs and mental health conflicts manifested by her fame, followed by steadfast happiness and the quest towards healing. During recording the concept album, the singer commented, “I felt threatened by the things my career brought into my life and the pace of my life. I spent a lot of time in a sort of catatonic state of just not wanting to do anything. And then If in ally, slowly started to make music and tell my story through my record.”. The cyber punk artist with her avant-garde visual style returned to her dance-pop roots inspired by 1990s house music of electronic dance. Topping the charts in several countries, including the United States, the album marked Gaga’s sixth consecutive number-one album on “Billboard 200” .
The album cover was a collaboration of several artists. The overall artistic direction was conceived by Nicola Formichetti, an influential creative artist in the fashion world. The veteran German photographer, Norbert Schoerner was responsible for shooting the cover. The creator of Gaga’s futuristic sci-fi body suit and a knife-heel boot, was Cecilio Castrillo Martinez, along-time friend of the singer. Dressed in hot pink hair, metallic body suit, bionic sleeve, and welded claws, Gaga posed on top of a large metal grate with a pink neon light, beneath the symbol of the planet Chromatica, a gigantic metal sine-wave symbolling music.
With the album release in spring of 2020, the 35-year-old mega star was scheduled to tour and perform The Chromatica Ball, a limited concert series in the summer of 2020, but with the onset of the COVID 19pandemic the concert series was postponed until the summer of 2022. The first all-stadium, 15-citytourstarts in Dusseldorf, Germany on July 17thand concludes in Los Angeles, United States on September10th. For details checkout https://www.ladygaga.com/thechromaticaball
Film: After releasing the album, Chromatica, and postponing the concert tour, the Grammy and Oscar-winning actress was selected to play the leading role in The House of Gucci, a sensational true story of murder, madness, glamour, and greed based on a novel by Sara Gay Forden. In the film Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) and Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) come together in a heated romance, then a struggling marriage followed by fighting for control of the Italian fashion house, Gucci. After the marriage of Patrizia and Marurizio the family disinherited him, the struggling law student took a job at the trucking company. After getting pregnant and giving birth to the grand child, the family reconciled, and the inheritance was reinstated after Patrizia forged the documents. Maurizio falls in love with along time friend, Paola Franchi, and asks Patrizia for a divorce. A year after the divorce, she hired two hitmen to murder her former husband. On that day, she wrote in her diary “paradeisos”, the Greek word for “paradise”. Two years later the authorities gathered evidence and arrested Patrizia, known as the “Black Widow” by the local press. She was sentenced to 29 years in prison.
From the MGM Father, Son, and House of Gucci video, “This behind-the-scenes look at Ridley Scott’s HOUSE OF GUCCI offers a glimpse into the story, characters, and filmmaking team that brought the outrageously true story to life. Featuring the outstanding cast, Lady Gaga, Jared Leto, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Salma Hayek, and Jeremy Irons”. Lady Gaga mentioned, “And when I say different instruments(referring to cast members), I mean in an orchestra, there’s everything from the drums to the bass to the brass to the woodwinds, the strings and because we’re also different as actors, this movie is really conducting a symphony of all these different musical parts”.
Stage: Next stop is the concert residency, Lady Gaga Jazz & Piano, at Park MGM Hotel in Las Vegas starting April 14, 2022, for nine live shows. The intimates how allowing only6,000 fans will feature Gaga’s greatest hits and celebrate the Great American Songbook of show tunes, jazz favorites and the collaborative album, Love for Sale, but without Tony Bennett. The concert residency will certainly be a sell out.
Masquerade Magazine wishes to thank Lady Gaga, the amazing collaborators and management team for sharing their work and stories. Lady Gaga is a real person, a living artistic icon and empathic crusader for humanity
