Opera - my/maSCENA

Matthew Cairns, Tenor, 2022 Met Opera Auditions

By Gianmarco Segato on 2 October 2022 Art Song, Classical Music, Music Competition, Opera, Vocal

Tenor Matthew Cairns’s star has been rising for a few years now, but his promise was given the ultimate seal of approval when he became one of the winners of the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition this past spring. When asked to share the secret of his success, Cairns said: “I think you need to sing what you feel most comfortable singing, and what is also a popular piece. The audience loves an aria that is full of emotion and drama. Ultimately you need to show the audience who you are, and the right aria will do…

Ensemble Caprice

Dido and Aeneas : New Prologue Breathes Fresh Life into a Classic

By Gianmarco Segato on 30 September 2022 Baroque and Early, Classical Music, Opera

When Ensemble Caprice brings Henry Purcell’s 1689 operatic gem Dido and Aeneas to Montreal’s Salle Bourgie on Nov. 8 under conductor, flutist and composer Matthias Maute, audiences will hear and see an amalgam of old and new. As with everything this stellar, now 30-year-old group presents, Maute hopes listeners “will feel a spark and be beguiled” by a work that is “really something that is in the present” as much as the far-away past. Maute will be helped in this regard by the vagaries of history itself. We know Dido and Aeneas premièred as a stage work with a prologue…

Allyson McHardy. Photo: Bo Huang

Opera and vocal art highlights: Opéra de Montréal presents Verdi’s Il Trovatore de Verdi

By Justin Bernard on 19 September 2022 Classical Music, Opera, Vocal

From Sept. 10 to 18, Opéra de Montréal will present another operatic masterpiece at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier. Composed during the same period as La traviata and Rigoletto, Verdi’s Il trovatore (in French, Le trouvère) is no less famous for its multi-generational plotlines, its inclinations toward revenge and romance, and, of course, its famous arias. Stage directed by Michel-Maxime Legault and under the baton of Jacques Lacombe, the production features world-class artists, including Australian soprano Nicole Car (Leonora), baritone Etienne Dupuis (Count de Luna), contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux (Azucena) and Luc Robert (Manrico). Also featured are Matthew Treviño (Ferrando), and three current or…

Photo: Vivien Gaumand

Review | Il Trovatore: top-class singers and no stage set

By Justin Bernard on 12 September 2022 Concert Reviews, Opera

On September 10, the Opéra de Montréal launched its season with Verdi’s Il Trovatore, another classic of the operatic repertoire. For the occasion, the company had attracted one of the most prestigious casts we have ever seen on the Wilfrid-Pelletier stage: Australian soprano Nicole Car (Leonora), and Canadians Marie-Nicole Lemieux (Azucena), Etienne Dupuis (Count di Luna), and tenor Luc Robert (Manrico). All experienced and with many career successes. In the lead role, Nicole Car was the Verdian heroine that everyone dreams of hearing. Her voice had the depth take on the difficult score of Leonora and the…

Philippe Jaroussky & Marie-Nicole Lemieux: Good friends find themselves with Les Violons du Roy

By Justin Bernard on 2 September 2022 Baroque and Early, Interviews, Opera

Thanks to their international reputation, Les Violons du Roy have attracted, over the years, the world’s foremost soloists and the most memorable of collaborations spanning all sorts of repertoires, notably in baroque music. The 2022-2023 season is no exception. For their Sept. 22 opening concert in Quebec City, and their Sept. 24 concert in Montreal, the chamber orchestra welcomes none other than Philippe Jaroussky and his longtime friend, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux. We no longer need to formally introduce the French countertenor, since his 25-year-long career and his 30 recordings speak for themselves. He was in his 20s when harpsichordist Luc…

Etienne Dupuis & Nicole Car: Return to the Opéra de Montréal

By Justin Bernard on 2 September 2022 Interviews, Opera

The last time we saw Etienne Dupuis and Nicole Car together at Opéra de Montréal was at a production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in 2019. In September, Dupuis and Car, who form a couple on stage as they do in the city, will find themselves at Wilfrid-Pelletier Hall at Place Des Arts, this time in Verdi’s Il trovatore alongside contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux and tenor Luc Robert. Verdian roles The two artists have different relationships to Il trovatore. Car remembers starting by singing the two main Leonora arias when she was 21 or 22. “The role is really perfect for my…

Backstage at Carnegie Hall: Opera by Tim Brady

By Justin Bernard on 2 September 2022 Classical Music, Contemporary, Opera, Vocal Jazz

Tim Brady is very single-minded. For six years, he has nurtured his opera about the history of the electric guitar, as personified by its pioneer, Charlie Christian (1916-1942). As a guitarist and composer himself, Brady knew quite well that this story would open the door to those who transcend individuals and borders. The life of Charlie Christian effectively aligns not only with the history of the electric guitar, but with that of jazz, Black musicians, and the Black community as a whole in its struggles against segregation and racism. Instead of limiting himself to one time period or place, Brady…

Ashkenaz Festival: The Unveiling of Bas-Sheve

By Zenith Wolfe on 31 August 2022 Classical Music, Contemporary, Opera, World Music

The story of Bas-Sheve—the first Yiddish opera ever composed—extends far beyond what’s in the score. The work was first written by Henekh Kon and performed with piano accompaniment in 1924 Warsaw, only to be lost in the annals of history for nearly a century, never interpreted as Kon imagined. Dr. Diana Matut rediscovered the manuscript in 2017, though it was 16 pages shy of its original 95-page length, leading her to commission Joshua Horowitz and Michael Wex to complete the score and libretto, respectively. Its restoration, performed in Germany at the Yiddish Summer Weimar Festival in 2019, caught the attention…

Promotional image from the City Opera Vancouver website

Newswire | City Opera Vancouver’s “CHINATOWN” Now Opening in September at Vancouver Playhouse

By Newswire on 25 August 2022 Newswire, Opera

Vancouver, 25 August 2022 – City Opera Vancouver has decided to offer its presentation of CHINATOWN in a new format. We are now offering a complete presentation of the opera, but in a staged concert format. We began general rehearsals on August 23rd and due to production and staffing issues we have run out of time to offer the version we originally intended. A revised format is the best-possible solution available to us in this complicated environment. The only alternative would be to postpone it another year. All of the elements of this meaningful and timely opera are intact. At…

Alain Zouvi (Credit: Julie Beauchemin)

Newswire | Opéra Bouffe du Québec Presents “La belle de Cadix”

By Newswire on 22 August 2022 Classical Music, Newswire, Opera

Laval, August 22, 2022 – After two years of silence, “l’Opéra bouffe du Québec (OBQ)” is eager to present “La belle de Cadix”, famous French operetta from Francis Lopez, renowned through time for its unforgettable arias! Staged by Alain Zouvi, with musical director Simon Fournier, the seven soloists, thirty chorus singers and the OBQ orchestra will carry the public to Spain, from October 22nd to 30th, at the “Théâtre des Muses” in the “Maison des arts de Laval”! L’OBQ is back on stage for the first time since November 2019, back when it presented “La fille du tambour-major” where Alain…

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