“I do shows in my life, but this one is very dear to my heart,” says Kathleen Fortin on the phone, who we could see in Unit 9, Tomorrow morning, Montreal is waiting for me And Sisters-in-law (musical comedy).
The singer and actress says she attended the first version of the opera Nelligan by André Gagnon in the 1990s, a work of which spectators will hear certain extracts. “I was 16 or 17 years old and I sang a cappella The golden ship almost everywhere at parties. These are texts, melodies that have lived with me since that age. It lives in my entire body. »
She obviously did not know at that time that she would be invited by the composer himself to play the poet’s mother in concert with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 2005, a role that she would later be called upon to reprise. .
We weren’t intimate, but we were around each other. André was a very elegant, very humble man, despite the immense success he had on a global level. It must be remembered that she is a megastar in Asia. Even today, thousands of his albums are sold.
Kathleen Fortin, about André Gagnon
The 4 seasons of André Gagnon, a tribute show produced three years before the composer’s death at age 84, has already toured Quebec in a “chambrist” version (vocals, piano, violin, cello, double bass and drums). However, the symphonic version was only heard once, at the Concerts populaire de Montréal in the summer of 2019.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Kathleen Fortin in the opera Nelligan in January 2020
“We had a lot of fun,” remembers the actress and singer. The public was delighted. It’s like organic, it’s like visceral, the public’s love for André Gagnon. We have it tattooed into our collective unconscious. »
“We forget how his music is an integral part of our lives. He wrote so much stuff! We hear plays and we say: “Ah, my God, he’s the one who wrote that!” The show takes us back to our memories of the last 50 years. »
Pianist Stéphane Aubin is no stranger to this success, having been at the helm of the show since 2017 as arranger and musical director. “Stéphane’s arrangements are truly sumptuous, I’m always overwhelmed to hear that at each rehearsal. André had a lot of admiration and respect for his work,” says Kathleen Fortin.
The 24-piece orchestra will perform, with or without the singer, hits like Wow, Snow and the Little concerto for Jean Carignanwithout forgetting several extracts from the opera Nelligan.
Kathleen Fortin is full of praise for the words of the famous French-Canadian poet. “Nelligan, when he describes color, smells, sounds, we see Montreal, we see Gaspésie. It looks like us! »
At the Théâtre Maisonneuve, in Montreal, on December 3 and at the Palais Montcalm, in Quebec, on December 7