The Domaine Forget International Festival is launched. In the coming week, Lanaudière, Orford, the Lachine Concerts and the chamber music summer in Ottawa begin. By going through all these musical events, we have made a selection of major events to meet everyone’s interests.
Two types of music lovers have it relatively easy in summer: opera lovers and those who love baroque music. The latter is admirably served by Baroque Montreal, now in mid-June. Discipline is not, a priori, associated with the movement of large crowds and is therefore not part of large-scale events.
Since 2022, the Festival de Lanaudière has broken this logic by welcoming William Christie. The musical director of Les Arts florissants will be back this year, on July 15 at 4 p.m., with Partenope, de Händel, an opportunity to introduce us to the six winners of the tenth edition of the Jardin des Voix, his academy for young singers.
Handel and Monteverdi
Partenope is an opera created in 1730 when Händel was 45 years old. The libretto had been refused by the Royal Academy of Music because it was considered too light. In fact, it is Handel’s first comic opera, basically a story of princes vying for the favors of Queen Parthenope, while Arsace’s former suitor, Parthenope’s favorite prince, disguises herself as a man to try to discredit him. After various adventures, she challenges him to a duel, but he manages to confuse her by demanding a shirtless fight! An excellent recording by Erato associates Karina Gauvin as Parthénope and Philippe Jaroussky as Arsace. After the concert on July 15, William Christie will perform at the harpsichord in Saint-Sulpice on July 17.
Lanaudière, the following weekend, will offer us one of the absolute events of the summer: the arrival of the Cappella Mediterranea and Leonardo García Alarcón for the major diptych of Monteverdi’s music: The Orfeo And Vespers of the Virgin. I‘Orfeo by Monteverdi is in a way the founding work of the opera genre (other operas precede it, but have been lost). The distribution for The Orfeo, on July 22 at 7 p.m., includes Valerio Contaldo as Orfeo, Mariana Flores as Euridice and Musica, Giuseppina Bridelli as Messagère, Alejandro Meerapfel as Plutone and Salvo Vitale as Caronte. THE vespers will take place at Joliette Cathedral on July 24 at 8 p.m. with the same vocal forces, Leonardo García Alarcón and his wife Mariana Flores adding a “Venetian night” at Saint-Alphonse-Rodriguez on July 25.
If you are in the Outaouais, think of the baroque day of Musiques et autres mondes, in Ottawa, on July 7, for a concert by Kerson Leong playing the Four Seasons, then an interpretation of Music for the Royal Fireworks, at 10 p.m., on the Ottawa River. The next day, July 8, the Concerts Lachine festival will open with Acis and Galatea, by Händel, under the direction of Matthias Maute.
Destination Quebec
For opera lovers, the unmissable destination is Quebec City, for the Opera Festival and two major events. First of all, Romeo and Juliet,of Gounod, one year later Fauststaged by Pierre-Emmanuel Rousseau and under the musical direction of Laurent Campellone, who had directedDon Pasquale this season. In the main roles, we find Thomas Bettinger and Patrick Bolleire, the exceptional Faust and Mephisto of 2022, this time associated with Juliette by Hélène Carpentier. The first is July 28.
The next day, at the Palais Montcalm, will be created Solemn Mass for a summer full moon, an opera by Christian Thomas based on the play by Michel Tremblay. “The full moon becomes a revealer of deep thoughts, of things that are kept silent, of the lucidity of suffering. The action that takes place during this full moon evening takes the form of a mass where the sacred and the profane mix, between mass and exorcism,” the festival tells us. Thomas Le Duc-Moreau will direct this creation directed by Alain Zouvi.
In Montreal, Rafael Payare and the OSM will host Isabel Leonard for the tunes of Carmen as part of the big concert at the Olympic Stadium on August 16 at 7:30 p.m. Rafael Payare will also be the major provider of events for lovers of large choral scores with the 9e Symphony of Beethoven at the opening of the Festival de Lanaudière on July 7 at 8 p.m. and Carmina Burana during the Classic Spree, at 3 p.m. on August 20.
corns in light
Fans of orchestral thrills won’t have visits from foreign ensembles, with the exception of the United States Youth Orchestra which, under the direction of Andrew Davis, will play the fantastic symphony July 16 at 2 p.m. in Lanaudière.
The event on which we rely the most is the concert by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who will conduct the Alpine Symphony de Strauss, in Lanaudière, July 28 at 8 p.m. Indeed, the oversized orchestra required by Strauss, especially on the horn side, will be nurtured by the participants of the International Horn Symposium 2023, and star horn players from the Berlin Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle Dresden will join the musicians of the Om.
With the exception of this extraordinary event, it is certain that the coexistence of the 2e Concerto of Rachmaninoff by Denis Kozhukhin and Rafael Payare, July 8, and of 3e Concerto, by Marc-André Hamelin, on July 29, will be a major event, still in Lanaudière. Lovers of comparisons will also be interested in the OSM concert on August 4, since Payare will conduct the complete Fire Birdpresented by Klaus Mäkelä and the Orchester de Paris next season.
At Domaine Forget, the concerts of July 22 and 23 with Yannick Nézet-Séguin are a must, as is the very original one where Mathieu Lussier conducts the OSQ on August 5.
Piano and chamber music
Summer is obviously blessed bread for piano lovers and, indeed, we will have some great visits. As part of an otherwise very cautious Orford Festival, the concert not to be missed is that of Sergeï Babayan on August 5 at 4:30 p.m. Studies-paintings and musical moments of Rachmaninoff as well as the Sonata D.894 by Schubert. In Lanaudière, Denis Kozhukhin gives on July 10, in Saint-Norbert, “the” program: Sonata of Liszt and D.960 by Schubert!
Angela Hewitt plays Bach in Sainte-Mélanie on July 27 and at the Ottawa Chamberfest on July 31. The Chamberfest will rely on Hinrich Alpers, German pianist, winner of the international piano competition Honens, in several concerts devoted to Beethoven’s latest sonatas, while Music and Other Worlds will welcome Janina Fialkowska on July 15.
The major visits to Domaine Forget are those of Benedetto Lupo, on July 2, and Alexandre Tharaud, on August 17 and 19. Lupo will perform in recital Seasons by Tchaikovsky and works by Debussy, while Alexandre Tharaud will resume, on August 19, with Les Violons du Roy and Mathieu Lussier, extracts from his recent Warner album devoted to film music. August 19 is also the weekend of the Classic Spree in Montreal. The guest pianist will be Francesco Piemontesi. With Rafael Payare, he will play the 25e Concerto of Mozart and the substantial piece of his recital will be the second book of Preludes by Debussy.
Finally, the tour wouldn’t be complete without the great chamber music encounters, a genre favored by the two Ottawa festivals that take place in July. The Chamberfest celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Trio Gryphon on July 27, while Musiques et autres mondes gives three concerts to the Quintette Alliage, on July 13, 14 and 15. The Domaine Forget will in turn host a stage of the farewell tour of the Emerson Quartet, on July 14, a blessed chamber day, when four hours earlier, Vadim Gluzman and Johannes Moser will be associated with other professors from the Academy in a same concert. The International String Quartet Academy in Montreal will open on August 6 with a concert by the remarkable Quatuor Danel.
These constituted ensembles should not make us forget encounters such as that of Charles Richard-Hamelin and the Andara Quartet in the Quintet of Brahms at the Concerts Lachine on July 13, the association of the same pianist with the violinist Bomsori in Schumann or that of Nicolas Altstaedt, Francesco Piemontesi, Alexander Read and Victor Fournelle-Blain in the Piano quartet op. 60 from Brahms to the Classical Spree.