The Festival d’opéra de Québec is celebrating its 15th edition with a new team: Jean-Marie Zeitouni and Laurent Patenaude. With a major international production – reviewed separately – and some Quebec opera creation, their programming continues the excellent work of their predecessors.
Free Activities Outdoors and Around Town
The Festival opened on July 22 with free outdoor activities entrusted to the Brigade lyrique, singers who are already well established on the Canadian opera scene – soprano Carole-Anne Roussel, mezzo-soprano Florence Bourget, tenor Emmanuel Hasler and baritone Hugo Laporte. Accompanied by pianist Bruce Gaulin – presenting a selection of arias and ensembles.
The Brigade opérette featured Jacques Offenbach‘s Le violoneux (1855), transposed to New France in 1690 by Bertrand Alain and served with finesse by Évelyne Larochelle, Louis-Charles Gagnon and Maxence Lasserre-Engberts, with Inti Manzi on violin and Marie-Hélène Greffard on piano.
Another free activity, Circuit opera, moved last year to inside the churches and chapels of Vieux-Québec. Each historic site saw a short recital: Handel arias by Priscilla-Ann Tremblay, English music by Natasha Henry, a varied program by Gabriel Provencher, French mélodies by Mathilde Duval-Laplante and a cabaret with La Charpie, mezzo-soprano and accordionist.
From laughter to tears
Indoor shows began July 23rd with the traditional partnership between Festival d’opéra and Jeunesses Musicales Canada, who presented a collage of operetta arias with a new script by Pascal Blanchet. Ma belle opérette, staged with enthusiasm by Thomas Lussier, takes place at the Monument-National in Montreal, where the Variétés Lyriques of Lionel Daunais and Charles Goulet performed from 1936 to 1955. Daunais and Goulet are preparing their next season, hesitating between established repertoire and recent works, but their singers, Olivette Thibault and Caro Lamoureux, want to weigh in on the decision.
Supported with flexibility by pianist Vinicius Costa, tenors Emmanuel Raymond and Andoni Iturriria, with their very distinct timbres, embodied Lionel Daunais and Charles Goulet with ease and humour. The excellent sopranos Natasha Henry and Natacha Demers lent their voices to the lyrical Lamoureux and the sparkling Thibault while also paying another singer from Paris and a grumpy music critic. Ma belle opérette will go on tour between October and December to 12 cities in Quebec and New Brunswick.
L’hiver attend beaucoup de moi, a short opera by Quebec composer Laurence Jobidon, provided a major contrast at the Théâtre Périscope on July 24 and 26. Director Nathalie Deschamps and designer Fruzsina Lanyi replaced the “magnificent and cruel landscapes of northern Quebec” of Pascale St-Onge‘s libretto with a public dump. Instead of a welcoming house, Léa, pregnant and fleeing a violent husband, and Madeleine, marked by a similar tragedy, end up in a squalid, sordid place.
Created online during the 2020 pandemic, L’hiver attend beaucoup de moi has evolved over the years. Festival d’opéra presented an enriched version, preceded by the long prelude Rien n’est dit – tout est engagé. Under the direction of Mélanie Léonard, Montreal-based contemporary music ensemble Paramirabo played the score solidly. Jobidon’s neoclassical language, with its occasional expressionist lyricism, accurately reflected St-Onge’s intense text. The generous voices of Marianne Lambert and Kristin Hoff, combined with their overwhelming stage presence, shed light on Léa and Madeleine’s crucial choices: to return to domestic violence or to face the unknown.
Photo Credit: Stéphane Bourgeois
Cont’opéra’s fifth collaboration with the Festival, Fables lyriques pour petits et grands enfants
Fables lyriques pour petits et grands enfants
For their fifth collaboration with the Festival, Cont’opéra chose five fables by Jean de la Fontaine, set to music by Jean-François Mailloux with libretto by Jean-Philippe Lavoie. The common thread of the show, the gardener Maxime, played by soprano Catherine-Élisabeth Loiselle, served as a link between la Fontaine’s animals, given voice and contagious humour by soprano Azur Simard and mezzo-soprano Pascale Boulanger. The vocal trio was supported by Jean-Philippe Lavoie on flute, Victor Desrochers on clarinet and Mailloux on piano.
Even if the youngest could not grasp all the subtleties of the texts, they were charmed by Mailloux’s music, Sophie Martel‘s sets and costumes, as well as Érika Gagnon‘s ingenious staging. Easily transportable, this production seems perfect for touring.
When Monteverdi Invites Himself to the Festival
Jean-Marie Zeitouni audaciously programmed an entire concert of music by Claudio Monteverdi on July 29. Along with the production of Dialogues des Carmélites, this concert was, in my opinion, one of the highlights of the Festival. Subtitled “La naissance de l’opéra,” the concert attracted an enthusiastic audience of both connoisseurs and the curious. The concert featured nine solid singers – Sophie Naubert, Paulina Francisco, Marie-Andrée Mathieu, Charlotte Cumberbirch, Jean-François Gagné, Andrew Haji, Joé Lampron-Dandonneau, Phillip Addis and Martin Auclair – as well as a dozen instrumentalists from Les Violons du Roy, brilliantly conducted by Zeitouni.
The program included Concerti from Book VII (1619) and Madrigali guarrieri e amorosi from Book VIII (1638), in which Monteverdi abandons the polyphony inherited from the Renaissance in favour of a dramatic universe. Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière‘s staging did justice to this theatrical dimension, and each madrigal allowed the singers to showcase their vocal agility and their understanding of Monteverdi’s brilliance. In Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, tenor Andrew Haji brought the tension of the story to life, while soprano Sophie Naubert and baritone Phillip Addis fought a fierce battle with a tragic outcome.
Unfortunately, the program, accessible by QR code – an awkward formula in a concert of this type – did not include explanatory notes or translations of the madrigals. A few photocopies, too rare, allowed some to fully appreciate the richness of this music, but surtitles would have been welcome.
Arias and Umbrellas
To close the 15th season on August 2, a free outdoor concert took place at the site of the Videotron Centre on Place Jean-Béliveau. Despite the uncertain weather, most of the Festival’s soloists, the Opéra de Québec chorus and the Orchestre symphonique de Québec offered the public a selection of the most beautiful operatic arias and ensembles. I was only able to attend the afternoon rehearsal, but what I heard left me in no doubt about the quality of the evening’s performance to come.
Photo Credit: Irène Brisson
Monteverdi – Phillip Addis and Sophie Naubert fought a fierce battle in Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda
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