Julie Boulianne, between deaths and births

Cancellations, replacements at short notice, COVID-19… the agenda of mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne has rarely been so turned upside down as in the last few months. To the delight of Montreal music lovers, who will be able to hear it twice rather than once in the coming weeks.

“When I was called, I was super happy, but afterwards, it got into me a bit,” says the Jeannois singer who was asked a month ago to replace tenor Christoph Prégardien, who was originally supposed to sing The beautiful miller by Schubert with the Pentaèdre wind quintet on Thursday at Bourgie Hall. Instead, Julie Boulianne will compete against Kindertotenlieder by Mahler.

The singer was contacted as she was about to make an off-the-cuff replacement at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in the summer nights by Berlioz, with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. The same program, which was to be given in Utrecht, was cancelled… due to a windstorm that paralyzed the whole country.

Back in Quebec, Julie Boulianne has her work cut out for her.

“It’s a big cycle, because of the emotional charge of the texts”, notes the mezzo-soprano, who sang the work only once, a dozen years ago. “Right now, with everything that’s happening, it’s not easy to sing a cycle about the death of children. I will have to let myself be guided, trust the language of the composer, find the balance between the emotional investment and the music that is already on the page. »

There is something to be moved about in these five lieder composed at the beginning of the 20th^and century on texts by Rückert, who himself had lost two children. “Look at us, because soon we will be far from you! / What are still only eyes for you in these days / In the nights to come will be nothing more for you than stars”, the poet says to the children disappeared.

“It’s good to get involved in music, but I think you always have to keep a step back, let the composer and the poet speak and just be the vehicle of the work”, specifies Julie Boulianne, who is delighted nevertheless to sing the cycle, often performed with a large orchestra, in a more intimate setting.

His next concert in Montreal, on April 14 at Bourgie Hall, will be placed under the sign of birth. “It’s the complete opposite. [du 10 mars]. There, we go into the gallant tunes that we have discovered, things that have never been recorded. We are really excited about this project. We’ve been working on this for a long time,” says the artist.

All these unpublished tunes were written in the XVIII^and century on texts by the legendary librettist Pietro Metastasio, by composers such as Porpora, Hasse, Galuppi and others much less known. The director of Clavecin en concert, harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour, edited it, in collaboration with the engraver Pierre Gouin. Everything will be recorded, Julie Boulianne’s third with the ensemble.

And after ? “I’m here for a long time,” says the singer.

She will sing Donna Elvira in the production of Don Giovanni Mozart, from the Opéra de Québec, in May, before joining the Orchester symphonique du Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.

Julie Boulianne will be back in Europe in June to sing Dorabella in Così fan tutte by Mozart, at the Royal Opera House in London, before his debut as Octavian in the rose knight by Richard Strauss, at the Théâtre de la Monnaie. In short, there is no shortage of projects.

Also on the program

From the grand piano to Bourgie

Two great ladies of the keyboard will soon perform at Bourgie Hall. On March 12, it is the Venezuelan Gabriela Montero, who performed in this same hall in 2019, who will be heard in a Russian program (Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff), in addition to improvising on the film The emigrant of Chaplin. Britain’s Imogen Cooper will succeed him on April 3 in Beethoven, Schubert and Adès.

A flagship ensemble at the LMMC

Few ensembles devote themselves full-time to works for string quartet with piano. The Fauré Quartett, founded in Germany in 1995, is one of the most prestigious. The four musicians will play Brahms and Fauré at Salle Pollack on Sunday afternoon March 20 as part of the Ladies’ Morning Music Club season. Reservation required at 514 932-6796, 514 708-6796 or by email at [email protected].

While waiting for the Opéra de Montréal…

To hear opera in the hall while waiting for the magic flute of Mozart in May at the Opéra de Montréal, lovers of the lyrical art must absolutely go to Pollack Hall at McGill University on March 25 and 26 to attend the opera Don Giovanni by the same composer, and this, at a friendly price. The school’s students will perform under the direction of conductor Stephen Hargreaves and director Patrick Hansen.

the Quebec Concertoagain

After being played by pianist Jean-Philippe Sylvestre at the Maison symphonique in February with the Orchester Métropolitain, the now famous Concerto n^oh 3, known as “from Quebec”, by André Mathieu will be given again on the same stage on April 2 by its greatest defender, the pianist Alain Lefèvre. He will be accompanied by the musicians of the Orchester Philharmonique et Chœur des Mélomanes (OPCM) under the direction of the young Francis Choinière, who will also offer the no less famous Symphony n^oh 9 “From the New World” by Dvořák.