The Abominable Showman; Baritone Étienne Dupuis

The triumphant homecoming of Etienne Dupuis

After receiving accolades across Europe, Montreal baritone Etienne Dupuis returns home to star in The Barber of Seville at L’Opéra de Montréal 

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

(Rehearsal photos by Yves Renaud)

Montrealers remember seeing rising baritone Etienne Dupuis when he was part of a flash mob of opera singers staged in the busy Marché Jean Talon market in his hometown of Montreal, to promote L’Opéra de Montréal in 2010. “I love people’s faces when I start singing opera in an up-close space,” Dupuis told the Vancouver Straight alt-weekly. “We were standing right in front of them and they just became statues. People don’t realize the nature of that sound and what it does to you. It can make you vibrate.”

Watch the clip here.

Review: (Montreal) Nabucco (Opera)

The opera within an opera at the opera house
by Aleksandra Koplik

Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco, is about a Babylonian King seeking revenge on the Jews for stealing his daughter, a vicious love triangle driven by power and the Hebrew people seeking freedom from the Assyrians. As the curtains open - on this collaboration between the Washington National Opera, Opera Philadelphia and Minnesota Opera - we are also submerged in 1842 La Scala, when Italy was under Austrian rule. We see three theatre balconies on stage and a group of upper-class Austrians taking their seats. An opera within an opera is taking place.

The Abominable Showman, September 17, 2014

The Italian Stallion
The foremost Verdi baritone of his generation Paolo Gavanelli makes his grand Opera de Montreal debut in the title role of Nabucco

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

The eminent British classical music critic Hugh Canning once described Italian Baritone Paolo Gavanelli as “the foremost Verdi baritone of his generation.”

And certainly Gavanelli has been one of the most successful, with a repertoire of over 50 roles in a career that has spanned over 30 years. He is renowned for his signature roles: Rigoletto, Macbeth, Simon Boccanegra, Falstaff and, of course, Nabucco, which he will reprise in his L’Opera de Montreal debut opposite Russian soprano Tatiana Melnychenko as Abigaille.

The Abominable Showman, September 12, 2014

Marie-Nicole Lemieux (photo by Denis Rouvre)

Opera Nation

Canadian opera companies stick to crowd-pleasing Italian masterpieces to anchor their 2014- 2015 seasons

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

The upcoming 2014-2015 opera season across Canada continues to rely on old Italian classics by such tried-and-true composers as Gaetano Donizetti and Giacomo Puccini. And the biggest buzz this season is the return of the Canadian Opera Company’s internationally-hailed double-bill of Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Arnold Schoenberg’s Erwartung, directed by Robert Lepage.

Vancouver Opera’s upcoming 55th season features four productions: Georges Bizet’s Carmen, in French with English translations projected above the stage (Sept 27 – Oct 5); Stickboy, a moving new opera by world-renowned spoken-word artist Shane Koyczan and composer Neil Weisensel about the inner life of a young boy (Oct 23 – Nov 7, at the Vancouver Playhouse); Johann Strauss, Jr.’s melody-filled epic Die Fledemaus (Feb 28 – March 8, 2015); and to close the season with a bang, Stephen Sondheim’s darkly comical Sweeney Todd, starring real-life husband and wife Greer Grimsley, one of the great bass-baritones of his generation, as Sweeney Todd, and acclaimed mezzo-soprano Luretta Bybee as Mrs. Lovett (Apr 25 – May 3, 2015). All performances (except Stickboy) are at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

The Abominable Showman, May 15, 2014

Kamen Chanev and Galina Shesterneva

A  Day in the Life

The Charlebois Post goes backstage to preview L’Opera de Montreal’s international All-Star production of Puccini’s classic Turandot

by Richard Burnett (rehearsal photos by Richard Burnett)

@bugsburnett

Two of the most demanding and best-loved roles in the history of opera are Princess Turandot and Prince Calaf in Giacomo Puccini’s final opera, Turandot, which premiered at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in April 1926.

Opera Australia’s current production of Turandot has been travelling the world for years, and arrives in Montreal with New Zealand-born former ballet dancer, choreographer and director Graeme Murphy at the helm.

“In the early days Turandot used to come with her own eye make-up and her own wigs, and sometimes her own costumes,” Murphy told me last week at an OdeM rehearsal for Turandot. “Every new Calaf and Turandot – these opera singers have careers playing these two roles around the world, it’s one of those roles that is quite demanding, and they may get stuck in the role. So my job is to make them feel fresh. Sometimes I make drastic changes, although this production is [also very] specific.”

For this Opera Australia production of Turandot, L’Opera de Montreal has hired two renowned singers to portray Princess Turandot and Prince Calaf: Russian-born soprano Galina Shesterneva and Bulgarian tenor Kamen Chanev. The international cast is rounded out by Japanese soprano (and Montreal favourite) Hiromi Omura as Liù.

Shesterneva is known for her Turandot, but it was another Puccini opera, Madama Butterfly, that inspired her to be an opera singer.

The Abominable Showman, March 19, 2014

Director Hugo Belanger and mezzo-soprano Emma Char (centre, rear) during a rehearsal for Engelbert Humperdinck’s classic 1893 opera Hansel and Gretel

Young hearts, run free

The Atelier lyrique de L’Opéra de Montréal, National Theatre School of Canada, and the National Circus School join forces to create a brand-new cutting-edge production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s classic 1893 opera Hansel and Gretel

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

(All rehearsal photos by Richard Burnett)

Canadian mezzo-soprano Emma Char was among the very lucky few to be chosen to study in the renowned Atelier Lyrique de L’Opéra de Montréal, a school that has bequeathed the opera world such talented singers at Etienne Dupuis, Marie-Josée Lord, the handsome Phillip Addis, as well as Taras Kulish, who today is executive director of the McGill Chamber Orchestra.

The 29-year-old Atelier Lyrique de L’Opéra de Montréal offers professional internships – combining training and on-stage experience – to young Canadian artists who have completed their studies and intend to pursue a career in the field of opera.

Char is one of 10 young artists chosen for the 2013-2014 season and while she may be young, Char has already experienced some terrifying showbiz moments, like the time she sang the title role in La Cenerentola when she completed her Artist Diploma at Cincinatti’s prestigious College Conservatory of Music. 

“It was one of the first operas I ever did, my scene partner forgot he was supposed to stay onstage with me during my entire aria!” Char recalls today. “He left the stage and I had to improvise my acting right there on the spot. I was freaking out, but I was like, ‘I can do this!’”

The Abominable Showman, November 9, 2013

(photo by Denis Rouvre)

Diva with a Heart

CharPo sits down for a revealing tete-a-tete with contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, who is reprising the role that earned her accolades and standing ovations last year at The Royal Opera at Covent Garden, Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s classic opera Falstaff

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

French composer Claude Debussy once famously said, “In opera, there is always too much singing.” Of course, he never heard Marie-Nicole Lemieux, the first Canadian to win the First Prize and the Special Prize for Lieder at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Belgium.

To hear Lemieux tell her own story – with her amazing charisma and bubbly personality – you  know she’d be able to convince Debussy he was dead wrong, and without her even singing a note.

That is how utterly convincing and invested Lemieux is in her craft.

“I never asked myself if I could sing because singing was always natural for me,” says Lemieux. “I could always sing. I only studied music later. But I could always sing. It was like breathing. Then when I discovered opera when I was 10-years-old, it was like a dream, untouchable. It really was the start of my passion.”

The Abominable Showman, September 12, 2013

Measha Brueggergosman (via measha.com)

Opera Nation

Canadian opera companies stick to crowd-pleasing Italian masterpieces to anchor their 2013-2014 seasons 

by Richard Burnett @bugsburnett

The upcoming 2013-2014 opera season across Canada continues to rely on old Italian classics by such tried-and-true composers as Guiseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini. And the biggest buzz this season is L’Opéra de Montréal’s superstar production of George Gerhswin’s Porgy and Bess starring soprano Measha Brueggergosman.

Vancouver Opera's upcoming 54th season will include Giacomo Puccini's Tosca  (Oct 26 – Nov 3), Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring, co-produced with Pacific Opera Victoria (Nov 30 to Dec 8),  Mozart’s Don Giovanni (March 1-9, 2014) and – for the first time at the Vancouver Opera in 40 years – Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo (May 3-11, 2014). All performances are at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Across the bay, for their 2013-2014 season, British Columbia’s Pacific Opera Victoria – who boast they are “the only major opera company in Canada to build its own sets exclusively” – will present three productions: Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi, with the Victoria Symphony and the Pacific Opera Chorus, and starring Brian Bannatyne-Scott as Falstaff (Oct 17 – 27); Ariadne auf Naxos (music by Richard Strauss and libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal) runs Feb 13 – 23, 2014; and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (April 24 to May 4, 2014).

The Abominable Showman, May 18, 2013

Barihunk

Saskatchewan native and 2013 McGill graduate Gordon Bintner has made the tricky transition from student operas to the world’s great stages look effortless – and he’ll do it again in L’Opéra de Montréal’s new production of Manon, Jules Massenet’s classic of the French opera repertoire…

by Richard Burnett
@bugsburnett
(production photos by Yves Renaud)

My new favourite website Barihunks defines a “barihunk as “any hunk who sings in the baritone and bass/baritone range. Singers must be professional, semi-professional or serious students with real potential.”

Real potential for singing, of course. 

But Saskatchewan native Gordon Bintner – who plays the role of Lescaut in L’Opéra de Montréal’s new production of Massenet’s classic French opera Manon at Salle Wilfred-Pelletier beginning tonight – he knows that in today’s digital world of opera, fitness, youth and good looks will help him connect with young mainstream audiences.

So when I show Bintner that Barihunks has labelled him “opera's new Golden Boy,” the bass-baritone smiles broadly.

“That’s cool!” he says proudly. “I believe I have to be in good shape. It’s always been important but nowadays it’s even more important. There’s this baritones-without-shirts thing happening. There are physical aspects you need to be ready for. Even in this production [of Manon] there’s lots of physicality, jumping and running around. And when you’re a tenor or baritone, you are also expected to lift women when [the director] asks you to. 

Review: (Montreal) La Traviata

Alfredo (Roberto Di Biasio) shames Violetta (Myrtò Papatanasiu) (photo credit: Yves Renaud)

VERDI’S FALLEN WOMAN IS  A THEATRICAL TREAT
joel fishbane

Grand and glorious, La Traviata arrived at Place des Arts this week with five different sets, an immense cast, a full orchestra and one of Giuseppe Verdi’s most famous scores. Opéra de Montréal has aimed to make a splash with the opening production of their new season and they’ve succeeded admirably, creating a great pageant of song and spectacle that brought the first nighters to their feet almost before the final curtain fell.

Most people of any wisdom don’t go to the opera for the story, which is a good thing when sitting through La Traviata - the less said about the “plot” the better. Suffice it to say there’s the requisite lovers (Myrtò Papatanasiu and Robert de Biasio), a father who drives them apart (Luca Grassi) and a little tuberculosis to threaten things just as the lovers are getting reunited. It’s a silly plot which provides ample room for sweeping arias, gorgeous recitives and chorale numbers that leave you breathless, all of which Opéra de Montréal are more than happy to provide.

Profile: Tenor Khachatur Badalyan

Jazzman to Divo....via an invisible gun

Khachatur Badalyan stars in L’Opera de Montréal’s production of Rusalka and follows a long line of great Russian tenors

By Richard Burnett

(performance photos by Michael Daniel of the OdeM/Minnesota Opera production)

Russian tenor Khachatur Badalyan was starring in a production of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin at the Novaya Opera in Moscow in 2007 when in the middle of a scene in the third act everything went horribly wrong. “I had just finished a duet with [the character] Elsa and the bad guy is supposed to kill me with a sword,” Badalyan recalls. “So I’m supposed to grab a gun. But the prop guy forgot to put the gun where it was supposed to be onstage and I kept fumbling around for it. Meanwhile, the bad guy is looking at me like, “Are you going to shoot me or what?’ So I pretended to shoot him with magic. The baritone playing the bad guy just about died and the audience, they – they knew!”

But what a wonderfully long strange trip Badalyan’s career has been so far. In Montreal rehearsing for his starring role in Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s masterpiece Rusalka being presented by L’Opéra de Montréal, Badalyan says, “I studied since childhood to become a painter and I [had] almost finished the school when I decided to become an economst and even got [that] diploma from university. That’s when I decided to become a singer. In my family we always liked to listen to classical music. So I have always  loved opera. But I never imagined it would become my profession.”