In the week to come, Rose Naggar-Tremblay will be one of the contestants of the Concours musical international de Montréal (CMIM). Based on her concert last May 12 with the OSM and previous editions, she shouldn’t just be figuration. Portrait of this 29-year-old singer with a rare voice and precious.
“Rose Naggar-Tremblay is a versatile mezzo-soprano, noted for the richness of her timbre and the intelligence of her interpretations. So begins the biography diligently and logically reproduced by the OSM a few weeks ago. “Without seeking to engage in a debate on her voice, she is a contralto”, we wrote in our concert report of May 12.
Nothing is more painful and pedantic, in music, than the nitpicking over vocal classifications, which has long pursued Marie-Nicole Lemieux, for example. But there, a reframing was essential, because if, at 29, evidence was so striking, it became a heritage issue as real contraltos (a typology more serious than that of mezzo) are rare. Hence the concept of “precious voice” attached to Rose Naggar-Tremblay.
walk
During the pandemic, Rose Naggar-Tremblay composed a cycle of melodies with Éric Champagne, healing, on his own texts. This work allowed him to win the prize for the best interpretation of a Canadian work in the OSM competition. “ healing talks about healing from performance anxiety, what it had been like for me to sing when I was not yet vocally aligned. All of this creates wounds: we are very aware, on stage, that we are not yet up to the repertoire we want to sing”, says Rose Naggar-Tremblay.
“I really appreciated your mention of my contralto register, because that’s what I learned while composing. I realized that when I compose my own melody, that’s where my voice wants to be, that it’s the most colorful, that I have the most control and the most fun to sing. »
Moreover, her participation in the CMIM, following a series of successes (victory in the OSM competition, victory in the Enesco Paris competition, “Young Canadian Lyrical Hope” of the Young Lyric Ambassadors, where she won everything), will include a novelty: “This is the first time that I have entered a competition as a contralto. »
Rose Naggar-Tremblay has no expectations at the CMIM “other than enjoying the program, benefiting from the work done and showing what I have done,” she says. Because I have traveled a lot. It is a way of affirming this change of direction”.
The CMIM will be a meeting place for her: “I know that the singers who will be there are the stars of my generation. However, I practice this profession to work with people who go to the end of the art. So I want to meet artists, to experience these encounters, to create relationships. » For the OSM Competition, too, she had no objective: « There was a great place for Canadian works and I wanted to sing what I composed with Éric Champagne. »
Align voice
To understand what this vocal serenity represents in the spring of 2022, it is interesting to look at five years where everything could have changed very differently.
After her bachelor’s degree in performance at McGill, with a minor in European literature and culture, Rose Naggar-Tremblay joined the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal in 2017. “I didn’t know where to place myself in my vocal development. I was not yet on my axis and I was going everywhere at once. My professor at McGill, Winston Purdy (1941-2017), had died when I entered the Atelier, which is also why I was lost. » Mme Naggar-Tremblay benefits from the advice of artists who pass through the Atelier, but these fleeting encounters mean that “one can be taken with an idea, but without the tools to develop it,” she explains.
The problem facing the artist is rather the abundance of goods. The material is rich. “I’ve always had a great voice, a very long voice, so lots of possibilities. I think the voice has a lot of colors too, so I was open to everything, to all repertoires. »
Rose Naggar-Tremblay only finds her voice in 2e year. “I slowed down a lot. With Arianne Girard, we worked in depth on the vocal alignment. It was slow, but I felt like I was working like an athlete for a year. I also sang the role of Gertrude Stein in the opera Twenty Seven, a revealing role because it is demanding. I saw through this role how much the work had paid off and what remained to be consolidated. »
At the end of his 2e year, the artist asks to continue a little. “I had not finished my technical work,” she analyzes. Chantal Lambert, director of the Atelier, gives her 10 weeks to take during the year. “There, I said to myself: ‘I’m going to do six months on the labor market, to see, and I’m going to come back in the winter.’ ” Good choice. She earns a little money, which allows her to have “a net during the first months of the pandemic by being supervised and continuing to move forward”.
crazy autumn
The singer’s pandemic period is both silent and bubbling. She completed her career at the Atelier, composed healingtook part in the Young Lyrical Ambassadors springboard competition, where she won an internship in Bologna, the role of Mercédès in a production of Carmen in Sofia and participation in the Enesco competition. All these commitments are finally postponed to the fall of 2021 due to the health crisis. “During the pandemic, I became a full-time language teacher for six months. I taught French, English and Italian online for five hours a day and worked on my voice the rest of the time. The money set aside allowed me to take risks, to participate in competitions. Winning these competitions then gave me a financial cushion. »
The singer draws lessons from the experience: “The secret is to be able to have the opportunity to leave at short notice. It may just be an audition, but you have to go, because you don’t know what it can give. »
Working hard was nothing new for Rose: “In college, I had three jobs at the same time and I went for a month at a time. Because, in the environment of a singer, the costs are not negligible. “It’s a sports team: my teacher, diction coaches, my osteopath…”
Self-knowledge and fulfillment are keys to a mastered art. Admittedly, the “repertoire consolidates the tessitura”, but the singer does not abdicate any element and continues to work on her voice until the high C each day.
In the fall of 2021, “after a year and a half on the ice waiting to take off, the will was burning. I was ready and strong,” she recalls. And there, everything fell apart.
At the Sofia Opera, who had hired her for the role of Mercédès in Carmen, the holder of the role of Carmen withdraws and Rose Naggar-Tremblay joins the ranks. She was taken on and rehired for several series of performances.
She won everything at the 2021 edition of the Young Lyric Ambassadors, with roles (including Erda) in Wagner’s tetralogy in Erfurt, Germany, and in Puccini (Zita by Gianni Schcchi) in Korea. She won the OSM competition and the Enesco competition in Paris. Following the latter, a French agency, Adagio, organized an audition tour for him. “The repercussions of this are gradual”, tells us the singer, whom we will certainly see on French stages shortly.
Her dream role is Isabella in The Italian in Algiers by Rossini. “For the competition, I also sing Malcolm de La donna del Lago. All the low Rossini are very comfortable for me and it’s the same with the low Handel: Cesare, Bradamante [Alcina]. In concert, Rose wants to sing Elgar, Mahler, Brahms and The Messiah, which put him in the ear on his voice. “My mezzos friends always told me it was difficult, while for me it was very comfortable”. Finally, there’s Vivaldi: “I like to sing coloratura and it’s a way of staying in vocal health, especially since I’m approaching my first Wagners. »
“Repertoire recognition is difficult when you have a long and colorful voice. You have to understand where the center of the voice is, what is most aligned with the speaking voice and make sure that the voice used when you speak is healthy, because these are the muscles you use regularly. Five years seems like a long time for this observation. It is however very short and, whatever happens at the CMIM, Rose Naggar-Tremblay can embark on her career in a determined way.