When you are tired of the noise of the metropolis, there is nothing like a short excursion to Quebec, out of tourist season, under the chills of the rising winter. In the Latin Quarter, history is remembered to us around every corner. You just have to strain your ears to hear him whisper or grumble. In the old streets of my hometown, personal memories stuck to facades and gables cling to my mind, along with colorful wildlife searching for meaning in life in its bars and cafes. Some verses from Nelligan come back to my mind: “What do the old streets tell you / old towns / dreaming of things that have disappeared / what do the old streets tell you?” “
Public art is also the architecture of times gone by, the damp vaults, the barely restored stables, suddenly for sale. So many signs have been blown away, since COVID hit merchants in a city that lives out many of its historic charms. Several antique dealers on rue Saint-Paul have fallen like flies. Those who float don’t have a lot of clients. One of them sighed, calling me to witness the stampede. Times are hard.
And how can we not greet the Maison Chevalier, the first restored building on the Place Royale, now returned to the field of a private promoter? More than a house, it is almost like the huge sailboat stranded by the river. Ah! Let us believe in heritage, if you want us to still feel rooted on our shores. Everything shakes us up.
I was going to attend the Grand Théâtre in The elisir d’amore by Gaetano Donizetti, opening the season for the Opéra de Québec after a long pandemic hiatus. We have already told you about the fears of the public, hesitating to return to theaters under the obligation to wear the mask at all times, without physical distancing. But never, especially during a premiere, have I touched so deeply on the catastrophe of this decline for local production. The sight of empty seats in a sparse assembly was heartbreaking.
Daniel Turp, chairman of the board of directors and interim director of this institution since the departure of Grégoire Legendre, assures me that they have tried everything to gather more spectators. Even regulars remained deaf to the call. The French bass-baritone Julien Véronèse, on stage so tonic in the skin of the charlatan selling a bogus elixir of love, had himself made use of upstream to distribute leaflets to passers-by, announcing the show to the round. Gone with the wind…
Explain the beauty
Yet this old-fashioned production was very pretty, twirling it around The elisir d’amore (still showing) was aimed at a large audience. The famous aria Una furtiva lacrima she saw the good French tenor Julien Dran sung in Nemorino, a distraught sigh of the proud Adina. The Orchester symphonique de Québec was in the pit, national solo voices, including that of Catherine Saint-Arnaud in Adina, anchored this opera in the community.
We are talking about a graceful work, with old-fashioned charm but of quality. So what ? The artistic director of the Opéra de Québec, Jean-François Lapointe, spoke of the miracle of having offered the public a production with sets, costumes and staging designed by an entirely Quebec team, in this difficult context of a turned world. .
During the intermission, the tenor and first director of the Opéra de Québec, Guy Bélanger, was sorry: “We no longer know how to explain beauty to the younger generations. He feared that the audience’s generational bond would be severed. You have to understand. Later, the conductor Jean-Michel Malouf confided in me that, like many musicians during the pandemic, he had thought for a while of changing careers. “But this is my life! He continues, betting on a singing tomorrows. To believe is to walk.
In Quebec, I felt the divide between before and after the pandemic more than in Montreal. In a less populous city, the fragility of the classical arts seems more palpable. History arises in its old quarters, but my cradle also remains the hostage of X radios which cannot qualify as ambassadors of beauty.
In the evening, I went to sleep at the Augustines Monastery, rue des Remparts. The old convent, which still houses the elderly sisters on the top floor, has been converted into a haven of meditation, yoga, vegetarian cuisine and memory. You can even sleep there in the former cells of the nuns, on the narrow bed with a hook to put down a veil. The museum trail bears witness to the spirit of the place.
Between yesterday and tomorrow, Quebec told me about the upheavals of our society over time. I came back seduced and worried, as from a tossed around world.