Can we change the world one aria at a time? This is the question that mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato tries to answer in her show Edenwhich will stop in Montreal and Quebec on Sunday and Monday.
Joined in Santa Barbara, California, one of the many stops of this vast tour on five continents which began last summer, the star mezzo-soprano is inexhaustible on her latest offspring, an immersive show directed by the Frenchwoman Marie Lambert -Le Bihan with John Torres on lighting.
“The opposite of war is not peace, but creation”: it was this phrase by composer Jonathan Larson that set the powder on fire. One of the few classical artists to have an “Activism” tab on her website, Joyce DiDonato is not her first committed project, having already been involved with prisoners, underprivileged children and Syrian refugees.
His speech to students at the Juilliard School in New York in 2014 summarizes his philosophy well: “You are there to serve the text, the conductor, the melody, the author, the harmonic progression, the choreographer… But the most important thing is to serve humanity with every breath, every step, every chord on the keyboard. »
Connection with nature
In Eden, it is nature, and by extension the human being, which is an integral part of it, which is at the heart of the concerns of the singer from Kansas. She deepened her connection with it during the pandemic, which allowed her to plunge her hands back into the soil of her garden.
Far from wanting to play Cassandra, Joyce DiDonato wants to raise more positive awareness of the many environmental issues (climate crisis, disconnection with nature, etc.), a method that she finds “more effective”.
“I want to give people tools and not constantly talk about the apocalypse,” says the artist. We must not fall into the easy path of cynicism. »
Eden is about the climate, but not about protest. More to try to convince that it is possible to live in a certain abundance in a sustainable way.
Joyce DiDonato
Those who come to Eden will not attend a classical recital with a singer in a gala dress accompanied by a pianist in a tailcoat. Joyce DiDonato speaks rather of a “stage experience with a story”.
There is of course all the visual dressing (props, costumes, lighting…) and the presence of the Il Pomo d’Oro chamber orchestra, but above all the choice of repertoire, selected with great care. “I do not bring much new, concedes the singer. Composers and poets have long written about nature and the will to bond with it. »
The first notes heard will be those of The unanswered question d’Ives, arranged for voice and orchestra. “I wanted to start the concert with something that immediately opened the imagination and end with “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” [des Rückert Lieder de Mahler]because I wanted us to achieve something that takes us out of the material world”, sums up the mezzo-soprano.
Along the way, listeners will hear relatively well-known (the Dance of specters and furiess of theOrfeo by Gluck for example), but above all many rarities of composers from the Renaissance to the present day, including the Bohemian Josef Mysliveček, a contemporary of Mozart who composed an oratorio Adam and Eveand a creation of Rachel Portman, but also Cavalli, Copland and many others.
Choirs from here
In each city visited, the show collaborates with a children’s choir, present to respond to the mezzo-soprano in one of the plays. In the metropolis, 25e stage of the tour, the Montreal Children’s Choir will be involved. The next day, in Quebec, it is the Maîtrise des petits chanters which will take the stage.
This aspect of the show is dear to the heart of Joyce DiDonato, who calls it “a way to build community”. She particularly remembers with emotion a concert in Budapest where she sang with underprivileged children, including a soloist who ended his performance in tears. “The life of this child has been changed, she is convinced. It may sound cliché, but when a life is affected like this, the world changes. Because children feel the power of their voice and can then share this strength they have within them. They become beacons of hope. »
Eden is presented at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at Place des Arts on Sunday at 4 p.m. and at the Palais Montcalm on Monday at 7:30 p.m., under the auspices of Traquen’Art and the Club musical de Québec.