In co-broadcast with Chants Libres and Le Vivier, Bradyworks and Tim Brady will present, Saturday and Sunday at the Espace Orange in the Wilder Building – Espace danse, Informationa bilingual chamber opera which follows on from Backstage at Carnegie Hall as part of a lyrical tetralogy by the guitarist-composer.
Tim Brady wanted to address various social issues in four chamber operas. The cycle Hope (and the Dark Matter of History) had addressed racism in its first part, Backstage at Carnegie Hallpremiered in September 2022 at the Centaur Theater.
Information, with a libretto by Mishka Lavigne, will take place in Montreal in October 1970, with the October Crisis, the right to abortion and the role of journalism in society as a backdrop. The operas The Mars Project And Sophie will complete the cycle, the first on space colonization, the second on climate change and artificial intelligence.
“Two operas are set in the past, the first in 1939 and the second in 1970, and two operas are set in the future, one in 2040-2041, the other in 2056. The organization is therefore truly chronological “, said Tim Brady Duty.
In the project Information, the composer appreciates “the Orange Space, an intimate place where the singers are very close to the public”. The cast, chosen by Marie-Annick Béliveau, artistic director of Chants Libres, includes four singers out of five who have never collaborated with Tim Brady.
Three stories
The composer somewhat modified his sound philosophy in Information. “Like the first opera, the second has four instruments, but I changed the orchestration and the color a little. The piano and electric guitar remain, but they are joined by saxophone and cello, in place of bass clarinet and violin. Main difference: I exploit instrumentalists more as soloists. There are several arias for voice and saxophone or voice and cello, whereas in the first opera the sound throughout was that of the ensemble. I use the word “intimate” again. This time not between the singers and the audience, but between the singers and the instruments. » Tim Brady promises us that his style will remain recognizable, “with jazz, rock and contemporary references”. “I haven’t changed my vocabulary,” he assures.
As presented, Information explores the relationship between two journalists: an English-speaking journalist, Mary Vance, and a French-speaking journalist, Sylvain Leclerc, who collaborated to cover the kidnapping of James Richard Cross by the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ), in October 1970. In parallel At these events, Mary experiences a personal crisis as she seeks to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, an illegal procedure at the time.
The show also brings back the character of the time traveler, a common thread in all four operas. She will take the form of a Soviet ballerina who hopes to leave the USSR and who predicts numerous events to Mary, who wonders how to use (journalistically or to change the course of history?) this data.
“I gave the broad outlines to Mishka Lavigne: I wanted to make an opera on the October crisis with two journalists, I wanted the time traveler who disrupts business and I wanted to tackle abortion and the Morgentaler trials. I also wanted to highlight the evolution of women’s place in society. Mishka built the story and the characters. The booklet is superb. »
For the composer, it was important to find a librettist who was not born in 1970, “who therefore had no historical, psychological or emotional link with the October crisis”. “I was 14 years old, I was in the West Island. It didn’t bother me that much, but I lived it and wanted to get the perspective of someone who would approach it purely through research and reading. It gives another perspective,” says Tim Brady, also happy to have “a woman’s vision on the evolution of women’s place.”
Information will unfold over nearly two hours, a larger dimension than for Backstage at Carnegie Hall, but “between the October crisis, the abortion and the Soviet ballerina who wants to defect, there are literally three stories! » notes Tim Brady, who promises to keep us in suspense.