Barbara

Barbara is the stage name of Monique Andrée Serf, a French chanson singer from Paris. Born in 1930 and active in the second half of the 20th century, she becomes known for a vocal style shaped by her early life, wartime experience and formal musical training. She is associated with chanson française.

Born into a Jewish family in Paris, she goes into hiding at the age of ten during the German occupation of France in the Second World War. After the war, a neighbourhood music teacher hears her sing and helps her develop her abilities. She studies voice and piano, and later enrols at the Ecole Supérieure de Musique. Financial difficulties lead her to leave her studies and sing at La Fontaine des Quatre Saisons, a cabaret in Paris.

Her songs and public image reflect the emotional impact of the war and her family situation. In her autobiography, Il etait un piano noir, she writes that her father sexually abuses her when she is ten. He later leaves the family, and his funeral in Nantes inspires one of her best-known songs, “Nantes”.

The name Barbara is also linked to an earlier song from the 1950s, with text by Prévert.