{"id":848646,"date":"2026-08-06T22:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/848646\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T22:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:00:13","slug":"festival-roundup-festival-dopera-de-quebec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/848646\/","title":{"rendered":"Festival Roundup | Festival d\u2019op\u00e9ra de Qu\u00e9bec"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Festival d\u2019op\u00e9ra de Qu\u00e9bec<\/a> is celebrating its 15th edition with a new team: Jean-Marie Zeitouni<\/a> and Laurent Patenaude<\/a>. With a major international production \u2013 reviewed separately \u2013 and some Quebec opera creation, their programming continues the excellent work of their predecessors.<\/p>\n

Free Activities Outdoors and Around Town<\/p>\n

The Festival opened on July 22 with free outdoor activities entrusted to the Brigade lyrique<\/a>, singers who are already well established on the Canadian opera scene \u2013 soprano Carole-Anne Roussel<\/a>, mezzo-soprano Florence Bourget<\/a>, tenor Emmanuel Hasler<\/a> and baritone Hugo Laporte<\/a>. Accompanied by pianist Bruce Gaulin<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 presenting a selection of arias and ensembles.<\/p>\n

The Brigade op\u00e9rette featured Jacques Offenbach\u2018s Le violoneux <\/a>(1855), transposed to New France in 1690 by Bertrand Alain and served with finesse by \u00c9velyne Larochelle<\/a>, Louis-Charles Gagnon<\/a> and Maxence Lasserre-Engberts<\/a>, with Inti Manzi<\/a> on violin and Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Greffard on piano.<\/p>\n

Another free activity, Circuit opera, moved last year to inside the churches and chapels of Vieux-Qu\u00e9bec. Each historic site saw a short recital: Handel arias by Priscilla-Ann Tremblay<\/a>, English music by Natasha Henry<\/a>, a varied program by Gabriel Provencher<\/a>, French m\u00e9lodies by Mathilde Duval-Laplante<\/a> and a cabaret with La Charpie<\/a>, mezzo-soprano and accordionist.<\/p>\n

From laughter to tears<\/p>\n

Indoor shows began July 23rd with the traditional partnership between Festival d\u2019op\u00e9ra and Jeunesses Musicales Canada<\/a>, who presented a collage of operetta arias with a new script by Pascal Blanchet<\/a>. Ma belle op\u00e9rette<\/a>, staged with enthusiasm by Thomas Lussier<\/a>, takes place at the Monument-National in Montreal, where the Vari\u00e9t\u00e9s Lyriques of Lionel Daunais<\/a> and Charles Goulet<\/a> 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<\/a> and Caro Lamoureux<\/a>, want to weigh in on the decision.<\/p>\n

Supported with flexibility by pianist Vinicius Costa<\/a>, tenors Emmanuel Raymond and Andoni Iturriria<\/a>, with their very distinct timbres, embodied Lionel Daunais and Charles Goulet with ease and humour. The excellent sopranos Natasha Henry and Natacha Demers<\/a> 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 op\u00e9rette will go on tour between October and December to 12 cities in Quebec and New Brunswick.<\/p>\n

L\u2019hiver attend beaucoup de moi<\/a>, a short opera by Quebec composer Laurence Jobidon<\/a>, provided a major contrast at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre P\u00e9riscope on July 24 and 26. Director Nathalie Deschamps<\/a> and designer Fruzsina Lanyi <\/a>replaced the \u201cmagnificent and cruel landscapes of northern Quebec\u201d of Pascale St-Onge<\/a>\u2018s libretto with a public dump. Instead of a welcoming house, L\u00e9a, pregnant and fleeing a violent husband, and Madeleine, marked by a similar tragedy, end up in a squalid, sordid place.<\/p>\n

Created online during the 2020 pandemic, L\u2019hiver attend beaucoup de moi has evolved over the years. Festival d\u2019op\u00e9ra presented an enriched version, preceded by the long prelude Rien n\u2019est dit \u2013 tout est engag\u00e9. Under the direction of M\u00e9lanie L\u00e9onard<\/a>, Montreal-based contemporary music ensemble Paramirabo<\/a> played the score solidly. Jobidon\u2019s neoclassical language, with its occasional expressionist lyricism, accurately reflected St-Onge\u2019s intense text. The generous voices of Marianne Lambert<\/a> and Kristin Hoff<\/a>, combined with their overwhelming stage presence, shed light on L\u00e9a and Madeleine\u2019s crucial choices: to return to domestic violence or to face the unknown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Festival d\u2019op\u00e9ra de Qu\u00e9bec is celebrating its 15th edition with a new team: Jean-Marie Zeitouni and Laurent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-848646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}