Waits Wants Export Ban For French Ballet Show

The show in question is called “Achève Bien les Anges” (They Shoot Angels, Don’t They?) by the world-renowned Zingaro troupe, led by Bartabas the Furious. The artists incorporated a list of Waits songs (16, according to the artist) into the show, alongside other music. Waits already tried to stop the show from going ahead in Paris, its place of origin, demanding about euro 500,000 in compensation for him and his co-songwriting wife.

The court decided the show was to go ahead, with Waits having to pay court fees. Zingaro and Bartabas maintain that royalties for the usage of the songs had been paid, euro 400,000 in total, according to The Guardian.

Waits is quoted as saying: “I turn down all commercial product endorsement offers and rarely collaborate or lend my name or work to other endeavors. It is my choice to get paid or not to get paid. And that value has been taken and exploited for the profit and promotion of Bartabas’s career and for his religious and political ideology, which neither the songs nor I chose to express. In short, it violates the integrity of my work.”

The production, which includes “30 horses and 19 truckloads of set,” was supposed to come to Edinburgh Festival next summer. Waits’ second court claim could thwart those plans.