The Lanaudière Festival opened on Saturday with the Orchestre de l’Agora and Nicolas Ellis, associated with the scientist Farah Alibay in a program bringing together Orion, by Claude Vivier, and The planets, by Gustav Holst. The evening raises many questions and opens up debate.
If we were to use the metaphor of the glass being half full or half empty to gauge the opening concert of the Festival de Lanaudière, there would be reason to laugh at us. The deluge that fell on the Amphitheatre during The planets (and we will first congratulate the brave spectators who remained on the pitch) was enough to fill any glass, just as it covered, alas, the very pianissimos of Uranus.
Legitimate guests
With this concert, the Lanaudière Festival gave Nicolas Ellis and his Orchestre de l’Agora their letters of nobility: first concert at the Amphitheatre, opening concert 2024. Xavier Roy, outgoing general director of Lanaudière, who presided over the creation of the Orchestre de l’Agora, by leading its board of directors from 2014 to 2019, was legitimized in his act of confidence by the musicians and their conductor, who confirmed the more than remarkable level of their Gala de la Terre (Alpine Symphony) a month ago at Place des Arts. The music was dug (the timbres ofOrion !), spectacular (the militarism of Marchwith very dry drumsticks), nourished (Jupiter) and generous.
Farah Alibay’s presence also comes from a very good intention. The scientist, who designs machines that explore the surface of the planet Mars, spent her childhood in Saint-Charles-Borromée, near Joliette. After Lanaudière, the cosmos became her playground. She speaks about it with happiness and enthusiasm.
Celebration
So what went wrong? Lots of things, actually. Asking the question, “How was this an opening concert for Canada’s biggest classical festival?” is likely to get the answers, “Uh” or “Oops,” because we forgot to mention that the music was chopped up to introduce the planets two by two.
“Family concert” on Sunday? Certainly not! Do you see children slogging through the litany of the names of the probes that left in 1976, 1992 and 2008 to explore the hidden face of Mercury or Jupiter? The only thing missing is the quiz session at the end of the concert: “Little Julien answered 12 out of 50 questions: he won a poutine from Chez Henri!” By the way, that’s one of the things we’ll remember: little Farah loved the poutine from “Chez Henri”.
How was the evening? “Interesting”. An emotion? Zero. Why? Because emotion in music, within a work, is built over a certain time by oppositions and contrasts. Basically, it would be fun if everyone did the exercise of what they have retained from this whole presentation. It could be the number of moons of a given planet, that Neptune, which should be very cold, is warmer than we think. But it comes down to a few things and not to all these details. We also had the pleasure of seeing beautiful photos, of course.
Elitism
The fundamental question is that raised by Mathieu Lussier in an interview with Duty : that of mediation; the idea of presenting concerts differently. This concern should not cause people to lose control.
Wondering what we really took away from the evening? It was Farah Alibay giving the umpteenth spiel about the supposed elitism of classical music — and science — (ouch, pointless) and telling us that she is discovering The planets Holst in rehearsal and rejoicing in the kinship with Star Warsa moment of remarkable freshness, but which, a minute later… illustrates the singularity of Venus by speaking to us of the “sounds of glockenspiel and celesta”.
This is the killer moment. We were there. Right on target and live! We interrupted the power of music so that, among other things, a celebrity who knows nothing about music could read words that were put in her mouth on an instrument she had never heard of. And “they say that classical music is elitist”… This is the ” fake ” which reeks of elitism.
We are now starting to dream that a dental technician from Sainte-Mélanie or Berthierville will become world champion (or similar) in orthodontics. In the name of Lanaudière patriotism, he will be invited to the Amphi. At least, that could earn us a concert of those wonderful overtures to French comic operas that we never hear anymore. From the title of Auber’s work, we could call the concert “The Crown Jewels”. And that, at least, will make for a festive and flamboyant opening concert!