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.