Soprano Joyce El-Khoury is acclaimed on the major stages of Europe. Several critics compare the Lebanese-Canadian to Maria Callas and praise the mixture of vulnerability and authority that emerges from her voice. Two significant qualities for playing Christine the Boy Queen at the Montreal Opera.
At 6 years old, Joyce El-Khoury left Lebanon for Canada. His family was full of singers. “My grandfather sang in church for 35 years, my father has a beautiful voice and my little sister is a jazz and soul singer, but classical music had no place in our home,” she explains. .
Lyrical singing entered his life a decade later. “I started my lessons at 15, but I didn’t want to sing opera. I found it so boring, because I didn’t know that. I dreamed of being a pop star! I preferred singing Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey. »
Pragmatique, elle avait cependant l’objectif d’étudier à l’université pour devenir infirmière. Jusqu’à ce que son père la fasse changer d’avis. « Un jour, il m’a dit que j’avais un talent unique et que ce serait dommage que je n’étudie pas la musique. D’habitude, c’est l’inverse ! J’avais tellement confiance en mes parents que j’ai pensé qu’ils avaient peut-être raison et j’ai auditionné à l’Université d’Ottawa. »
Non seulement elle a été prise, mais, en plus, elle est tombée amoureuse de l’opéra. Un milieu qui le lui rend bien en la comparant à la Callas.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESSE
Joyce El-Khoury
Je comprends [la comparaison] : my voice is like a wild beast. Maria Callas also had a unique voice color.
Joyce El-Khoury, soprano
Opera fans heard it last spring in Madama Butterfly and they will see her again in the operatic version of Christine, the Boy Queenthe play by Michel Marc Bouchard which was a hit at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde (TNM) in 2012, with Céline Bonnier in the title role.
Inspired
If the soprano knew nothing about the Swedish monarch, one of the first LGBTQ+ figures to have made history, she said she was inspired by her discovery. “She was very avant-garde! Even today it would be considered modern. In her eyes, the feelings she had for a woman were almost a detail. The problem for her was love! »
Indeed, the queen exchanges with the philosopher René Descartes to understand the feeling of love. “She asks him how to get rid of this thing that controls her. She often says that she is the wife of Sweden, that she gives herself to her country, and she seeks to free herself from the tyranny that is love. »
If the character is complex to interpret, the vocal score imagined by composer Julien Bilodeau is just as complex. “The orchestration is very dense and heavy,” she says. It sounds like Wagner, and I don’t usually sing that. The way it’s composed for the voice, it requires a lot of endurance. »
Last week, the soprano further tamed the emotional journeys of the Queen-boy.
In rehearsals, I cry throughout to release this emotion and let myself sing. We express love, hatred, passion, intelligence and love for our people. After one sequence, I was emotionally destroyed.
Joyce El-Khoury, soprano
A fragility that she considers necessary for the project. “To tell your story, you really have to open your heart and show your vulnerability, while exuding the energy of a queen. »
A queen who dressed like a man back then. “She wanted to wear what she wanted, in the 17the century, without anything being imposed on it. I love that ! It’s such a modern and LGBTQ+ way of being. »
That said, director Angela Konrad did not seek to highlight the character’s queer identity in the singer’s interpretation. “It’s already in the text, in the costumes and in the way she acts with men. She was stereotypically masculine, so I try to behave that way. I can be tough. So there are gestures that are very natural. »
To discover the passion and voice of Joyce El-Khoury, it’s at the Opéra de Montréal that it’s happening.
At the Wilfrid-Pelletier room at Place des Arts on February 3, 6, 8 and 11