CORONA Serenades: Q&A with Rose Naggar-Tremblay (mezzo-soprano, Canada)

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Meet Rose Naggar-Tremblay, singer for CORONA Serenades.

Rose Naggar-Tremblay has a bachelor’s degree from the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. Her roles for the Opéra de Montréal include Tisbe (La Cenerentola), Zora (Ana Sokolovic’s Svadba), Giovanna (Rigoletto) and Gertrude Stein (Ricky Ian Gordon’s Twenty-Seven). Other notable engagements are Anita in a concert version of West Side Story with the Orchestre de la Francophonie, concerts with the Festival de musique de Saint-Eustache, the Festival de musique de Lachine and the concert Eternal Light with I Musici de Montréal. Rose has performed the role of Duchesse Della Volta (La fille du Tambour-major) with L’Opéra bouffe du Québec and was a soloist in A Broadway Evening (Aramusique), On the Path of Love (Pro Musica), Soirée à l’opérette (Orchestre symphonique de Longueuil) and in YO’péra! (OdM). Rose’s mastery of diverse repertoire has led to appearances with the Halifax Summer Opera Festival, La Compagnie baroque Mont-Royal, the Opéra de Lévis, Stella Musica, Production point d’arrêt, the Lyric Montreal Ensemble and Opera McGill. Her second year in the Atelier lyrique of the Opéra de Montréal was generously sponsored by Elizabeth Wirth and Lucien Fauteux.

How has the crisis affected you?

As with everyone, my professional life is is on hold and will be for several months. I feel a lot of concern for my loved ones who work in hospitals and for my grandmothers. However, I also feel like going back to basics. I’m learning to take advantage of the little things in life, and to take care of my immediate surroundings.

What are your five favourite operas?

My favorite opera is always the one I’m working on. I let myself be engulfed completely by the dramatic world I’m entering and the music I’m learning. Right now I am absorbed by Werther, but also, more intimately still, a libretto that I’m writing. This is a project honouring my grandmothers and all the women who immigrated to Canada to offer more to their children than they had themselves.

What movies, television shows and books do you recommend?

I would suggest listening sincerely to your own needs. We all experience stress in our own way. Some will want to immerse themselves in literature, others in creativity, and others will have to mourn, which will take up all the space. There is no single path. Personally, right now, I’m reading Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy.

Why did you join CORONA Serenades?

It is difficult to predict how the world will be changed by this pandemic, but we each must do out small part to restore a semblance of balance on a planetary scale. I hope to be able to accompany other people in their solitudes, their personal journeys and their mourning.