Sharon Azrieli: Final Act

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Update (Sept. 19, 2024): Sharon Azrieli is sad to announce that she will not be performing with the Opera de Montreal in Barber of Seville due to circumstances out of her control.

“I’ve waited my entire career to sing with Opéra de Montréal,” says soprano Sharon Azrieli.

The wait is over!

The Montreal-born-and-raised Azrieli will be performing the piquant role of the maid Berta in Opéra de Montréal’s new production of Rossini’s The Barber of Séville (Sept. 28 through Oct. 6). It’s a moving capstone to a remarkably varied operatic, concert and recording career.

French Connection

“My favourite opera role of all time was Susanna,” says Azrieli of the resourceful servant girl in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Based as it was on French dramatist Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais’s 1778 play, there’s special resonance in Azrieli’s new role in another Beaumarchais-based masterpiece.

As a young singer, Azrieli recalls having immersed herself in the whole of Beaumarchais’s “Figaro Plays” trilogy, of which Barber and Marriage are instalments.

“They changed the course of history,” Azrieli says. Indeed, the Frenchman’s acid commentaries on class dynamics may well have thrown kindling on what became the full anti-aristocratic conflagration of the French Revolution.

And it didn’t stop there

“Emperor Joseph II gave Mozart hell,” says Azrieli. “He didn’t want him to write (the opera setting of) Marriage of Figaro because he felt it was incendiary.”

And Rossini’s later setting of Barber of Séville “still speaks to the position of women,” the soprano adds. “My character has a lot to say about how terrible men can be to women.”

Azrieli calls Berta’s arietta calling out the venal Doctor Bartolo (“Il vecchiotto cerca moglie”) the “Me-Too song” of the opera. “The old guy’s looking for a young wife. He should go pick on somebody his own age!”

The Sporting Life

“You need to be in shape to keep singing,” says Azrieli. “Opera is a sport.

“I run in the pool every day. I don’t drink alcohol and I’m so careful with what I eat. If you’ve seen pictures of me from, say, 10 years ago—I’ve lost at least 25 pounds!”

Azrieli also remains deeply engaged in musical promotion and philanthropy through the Azrieli Foundation. Oct. 28 will see the 10^th-anniversary gala concert which crowns the biennial Azrieli Music Prizes at Montreal’s Maison Symphonique, this year featuring all-choral works. Also in October, Azrieli’s brainstorm Project Hatikva will entail four days of free concerts across the nation of Israel, featuring every Israeli orchestra performing Jewish sacred music.

“The idea is to provide solace and comfort,” says Azrieli. “Healing through music.”