La Reine-garçon, composed by Julien Bilodeau, libretto by Michel Marc Bouchard, conducted by Johannes Debus, directed by Angela Konrad, Four Seasons Centre, closes Feb. 15.
The new Canadian opera, La Reine-garçon, absolutely deserves a shelf life. Many contemporary operas don’t last past their first showing, but I predict that this impressive work will find a place within both the national and international repertoire.
La Reine-garçon is a co-production between the COC and Opéra de Montréal and premiered in Montreal in 2024. Many of the COC singers were part of the original cast so they bring experience to their roles. This is a Canadian opera – or should I say a Quebecois opera – from stem to stern and features a roster of outstanding Canadian singers and a talented native son production team.
Librettist Michel Marc Bouchard is one of Quebec’s most distinguished playwrights, and he has joined with composer Julien Bilodeau to create an opera about the fascinating Swedish Queen Christina (1626-1689). The source material is Bouchard’s own 2012 play, Christine, La Reine-garçon (Christina, the Girl King).
There are many well-known facts about Christina. Her father ordered her to be brought up as a prince, rather than as a princess. She inherited the throne at age 7 and began ruling on her own when she was 18. She struggled to bring her backward Lutheran country into the modern age by inviting artists and scholars to her court from all over Europe. In fact, the French philosopher René Descartes(tenor Owen McCausland), father of the doctrine of free will, is a character in the opera.
In 1654 at age 27, Christina abdicated from the throne, moved to Rome, converted to Catholicism , and lived out her life on her own terms, reigning over a glittering court. The reasons given for the abdication are usually that she refused to marry to produce an heir, grew weary of the struggle to bring her country into the Enlightenment, and was a lesbian. The opera contains all three of these aspects leading up to the abdication.
Queen Christina (soprano Kirsten MacKinnon) is courted by two suitors, her over-amorous cousin Count Karl Gustav (baritone Philippe Sly), and the silly fop Count Johan Oxenstierna (tenor Isaiah Bell), son of Councillor Axel Oxenstierna (bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch), Sweden’s chief minister.
Christina is besotted by her lady-in-waiting, Countess Ebba Sparre (mezzo-soprano Queen Hezumuryango), and hates her horrid mother, Marie-Eléonore de Brandebourg (soprano Aline Kutan) who is accompanied by the silent Albino, her unsettling grotesque jester (actor Gordon Harper). Rounding out the onstage cast is Descartes’ assistant (bass Alain Coulombe).
There is, however, one more singer and a surprising one at that.
Soprano Anne-Marie Beaudette, who is off-stage, performs the Kulning, the ancient herding call summoning the cattle home. This primitive, jarring, discordant, penetrating song-chant sounds like something from another world, but is very real. It was designed to be heard throughout the valleys and the forests, and here’s a bit of trivia for you. The great Swedish Wagnerian soprano Birgit Nilsson used to sing the Kulning in her teens, which she claimed contributed to the full-throated nature of her glorious operatic voice.
The Kulning both begins and ends the opera, reminding us, perhaps, of the backward nature of Christina’s Sweden. It is certainly an unforgettable inclusion in the opera’s score and admittedly, is a shock to hear.
In her program note, stage director Angela Konrad refers to the opera’s “thoughtful, introspective tone” while composer Bilodeau calls the work “philosophical in nature” which accounts for the static picture of the staging. Quite frankly, I don’t think that the creators realize what they have in La Reine-garçon. The rapturous score and poetic libretto are crying out for an emotional stage treatment rather than a stand and deliver one, and that goes for both the undramatic individual singers and the monolithic chorus. The flat staging, in fact, is the one flaw in an otherwise outstanding production.
As for the huge orchestra, conductor Johannes Debus is in his glory, revelling in Bilodeau’s marvellous musical effects and exquisite detailing of character and mood. This brilliant score, under the maestro’s fine hand, tells a story of its very own while holding a conversation with the singers.
As for the singers, the three sopranos have tortuous musical landscapes to negotiate. MacKinnon’s superb Christina has to execute an arduous high tessitura for much of the time, while Kutan, a coloratura soprano, must navigate Marie-Eléonore’s uber-difficult parody of a coloratura aria. As for Beaudette’s Kulning, pulling off the call’s ragged musical line is a feat of its own. In contrast is Hezumuryango’s muted and anguished Countess.
Sly gives a passionate performance as Karl Gustav, while Bell, who has a lovely light sound, earns many laughs as Johan, particularly when he describes the excellent shape of his legs. For his part, McCausland’s Descartes is suitably pedantic, while the sonorous, commanding voice of Okulitch presents one of the best performances of the night. And as aways, the COC chorus gives its usual excellent sound.
The production team is first rate with Anick La Bissonnière’s atmospheric, brooding sets, Sébastien Dionne’s richly textured costumes, Eric Champoux’s evocative lighting and Alexandre Desjardins’ imaginative projections. Perhaps the coup de scène of the opera is when Bissonnière breaks away from the gloomy Swedish canvas to recall, in the brightest of light, Rembrandt’s famous The Anatomy Lesson, as Descartes searches the cadaver’s brain for the centre of love, an emotion which Queen Christina wishes to excise from her psyche.
The ending of La Reine-garçon is magical as Christina sings her ardent, fervent paean to freedom while the orchestra concludes with shimmering hues. Needless to say, the audience erupted in cheers and a standing ovation.