Singers: Poetic Motor

Among entertainers, a successful one-man show on Broadway is the equivalent in other circles of a 200-ft. yacht or a private indoor tennis court—way up near the top of the status symbols. This week the most popular of contemporary French singers, a sturdy, dark-haired theatrical dervish named Gilbert Becaud, winds up a three-week run that has put him in that tiny company of performers—Chevalier, Borge, Montand, Aznavour—who can conquer a Broadway stage on their own.

"Lungs Like Atlas." In his own country, where he survives under the nickname "Mr. 100,000 Volts," Becaud...