Albertine in five steps | Poignant, but uneven ★★★

Delayed for a year because of the pandemic, the opera Albertine in five stages finally hit theaters this week at the Théâtre du Rideau Vert. A production that was eagerly awaited, made with heart, which has its share of qualities, but also some imperfections.

Josee Lapointe
The Press

Michel Tremblay’s play has had more than 150 incarnations, in a dozen languages, since its creation in 1984. There is something universal about Albertine’s tragedy, and the story of this character haunted by her past is material first choice for a transposition into opera.

Albertine, 70 (Chantal Lambert), has just moved into residence. She is alone with her memories, which she revisits at different stages of her life, full of hope and contained rage at 30 (Catherine St-Arnaud), depressed at 40 (Florence Bourget), lighthearted at 50 (Chantal Dionne) and resigned and numb to pills at 60 (Monique Pagé). Alongside all these Albertines who monologue or challenge each other, the gentle and reassuring presence of her sister Madeleine (Marianne Lambert).

It was the challenge and it succeeded: after the shock of the discrepancy, there is something enjoyable to hear opera singers biting into Tremblay’s joual with blows of “Chus tu Seul”. But the transition is less natural than in a musical, as with sisters-in-lawand the production chose to write the text as a supertitle, which is necessary especially in group scenes where the lyrics are lost.

The booklet was adapted by the Collectif de la lune rouge, which includes the director and artistic director of the show, Nathalie Deschamps. A whole contract, which respects the dramatic construction of the work, in which each Albertine lifts the veil on her secrets. But above all, we managed to extract the key phrases and turn them into leitmotifs – “Respire, Bartine”, the five Albertines sing at different times to calm down.

The combination of music, texts and song

In the musical score, the singer-songwriter Catherine Major delivers delicate and evocative compositions, which range from romanticism to more contemporary music, with accents of tango and popular music, which stick to the subject in it. giving momentum. The choice of instruments – piano (Marie-Claude Roy, also musical director), violin (Mélanie Vaugeois), cello (Annie Gadbois), double bass (Anaïs Vigeant) and English horns (Élise Poulin) – and arrangements gives a result enveloping and delicate. It is, let’s just say, absolutely beautiful.

Some tunes fly away and stand out, but above all, all the compositions are very coherent. This is the strength of this new version with its sober staging, but a bit repetitive: on the first floor, the five Albertines each stand in front of a door, which opens and closes a little too often. In the second, the musicians play inside a huge waxing and waning moon, which is the most beautiful effect. Madeleine, who finds joy easier than her sister, sometimes goes up there.

The piece alternates between sung and spoken numbers, and this is unfortunately its greatest pitfall. If the six interpreters are of the highest level when they sing – each takes their solo to heights of virtuosity – it is not the same when it comes time to play. Albertine has been embodied by the greatest actresses in Quebec over the decades and the comparison is not to their advantage, but it is not their fault either: their primary job is of course to sing.

The longest spoken scenes lack intensity and fluidity, and all these singers of great talent who know how, in a single inflection of the voice, to convey all the emotion in the world, then seem helpless.

Not all of them, not all the time, but often enough for us to feel the gap between the sung and the played parts, during which they are little helped by the static staging.

Fortunately, they regain all their nuance abilities when they sing. And it is in certain group numbers, when, inhabited by anger, the Albertines make jerky gestures surrounding Madeleine, later when the pain twists their stomachs and they compulsively tighten a scarf around their waists, or when they all stretch their arms together towards the moon, when the show reaches its highest levels of emotion.

There can be no doubting the commitment and sincerity invested in this production, the result of which is poignant and carried by several moments of grace, but uneven. Which takes nothing away from the burden of the work, which is still just as powerful: the fate of Thérèse and Marcel’s mother, locked in a social yoke, smothered by rage, incapable of communicating, of crying or of love, and who, at the age of 70, finds herself alone contemplating the void in a room “that smells bad”, remains one of the most moving in Quebec dramaturgy.

Albertine in five times – the opera

Presented until Sunday at the Rideau Vert in Montreal

On tour throughout Quebec in the spring of 2023

★★★