Félix Leclerc : TV Mini-Series, Radio-Canada, 2005

The 4-part mini-series Félix Leclerc*, was met with a complicated critical and public response and ignited passions all the way to a lawsuit upon its release in 2005, but over the years it has attained a surprising longevity of a fan cult classic due to the participation of enormously popular Daniel Lavoie**, who seems to be having the last laugh in this story.

Nelligan : le chant du poète naufragé / André Gagnon-Michel Tremblay, March 2020

© Marc Hervieux / Nelligan / Jean-François Gratton, Shoot Studio / compagnie et cie 

Something wonderful happened this winter in Montreal’s Théâtre du Nouveau Monde : a brand new production of Nelligan. This version of an acclaimed opéra romantique by André Gagnon (music) and Michel Tremblay (libretto) directed by Normand Chouinard has a subtitle: Le chant du poète naufragé (The Song of a shipwrecked poet). After a triumphant run in Montreal the opera went on a tour of the province. I saw the show in Drummondville’s Maison des arts Desjardins, having travelled 300 miles and crossed a country border for that. Here is why.

La route d'Altamont / Gabrielle Roy

La route d’Altamont is one of those quiet but profound books. It is fashioned as a book of memories, but it is a philosophical work centered around a theme dear to Roy’s nomadic heart: journey. Every character in this four-story cycle has le mal du départ.

La montagne secrète / Gabrielle Roy

***spoiler alert***
La montagne secrète by Gabrielle Roy is beautiful book about the nature of art and the essence of creativity. The choice of protagonist helps to deliver the message with the most clarity: he is a Canadian trapper by occupation and an artist by calling (which he is the last person to recognize). Pierre Cadorai (a meaningful surname!) is a no more a conventional artist than he is a hunter, but nevertheless he is a true and pure artist consumed completely by Art, that liberating and unforgiving force.

Notre-Dame de Paris in Sherbrooke (QC), October 2018 (English)

One may try to resist the charms of Notre-Dame de Paris, but when the musical is approaching a geographically acceptable point, the invisible bugle calls, and time, money and even perhaps company come out of nowhere, and all of a sudden here you are sitting in the audience and your face is blue with the gleam from the stage light, and the show is about to begin ...

La Fête Nationale du Québec on the Plains of Abraham (June 23, 2018) : a foreigner's experience

If you ever find yourself in Quebec city on June 23 in the evening, do what the locals do: go see the free open air show in the city’s Plains of Abraham park on the high shore of the Saint-Lawrence river, because it’s the national holiday and the show is grand.

J’écoute la radio : notes on Daniel Lavoie's concert tour (2012-2014)

©Spectra Musique

 

To see a big picture one needs to step away from it. In order to understand the role a concert tour played in a performer’s carrier one needs to wait a couple of years after the tour’s ended. So, what exactly was the J’écoute la radio tour? Now, 3.5 years later is the best time to answer the question.

La fille de l'Ouest / Louise Dubuc (Montréal : Leméac, 2006)

 

La fille de l'Ouest takes the reader by the hand and transplants him/her right in the middle of the Quebec countryside. Yes, Louise Dubuc is obviously in love with Nature and understands it deeply. She knows how plants grow and how animals live, how food and love are made, how farms are run, how rivers get flooded, how the seasons bring change to Quebec's fields and forests and she writes about all this beautifully.

Daniel Lavoie and I Musici de Montréal, Laurentian Highlands Festival of Classical Music, August 14, 2010.

Once upon a time (in August 2010 to be exact) the village of Ferme-Neuve in the Laurentian Highlands region of Quebec hosted an exclusive concert that brought together Daniel Lavoie and I Musici de Montréal.

La Belle Bête / Marie-Claire Blais (Québec : Institut littéraire du Québec, 1959)

 

Cover of 1st edition of La Belle Bête, 1959. Source:
https://laurentiana.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/marie-claire-blais-la-belle-bete.html

Once upon a time there stood an evil farm where Hatred, Vanity and Vengeance ruled...  Marie-Claire Blais's La Belle Bête reads easy, but offers its reader no comfort, as the world of this Quebec author is cold and frightening. The characters are torn away by their passions, but the only true feelings here are hatred and envy, any positive feelings are either fake or selfish or borne by people who are either blind or mad (i. e. mentally blind). Physical beauty is one of the central themes (as the title implies), but it is always accompanied by a physical or mental flaw, and always - by a flawed soul. Yes,  in her novel Blais leaves no place for hope, no "crack" through which the light would get in. And yet it is an interesting work.

Marjo et ses hommes, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu (Quebec), August 15, 2010

© Marjo et ses hommes

Once again, summer rains have brought memories of the show Marjo and her men (Marjo et ses hommes), seen in August 2010 at the 27th International Baloon Festival (International de montgolfières) in the good town of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu in Quebec... Time to write these memories down.

La détresse et l'enchantement / Gabrielle Roy (Montréal : Boréal Express,1984)

 … car c’est souvent en errant seule dans les villes inconnues que je suis le mieux arrivée – mais à quelque chose d’autre que ce que je pensais chercher et qui fut presque toujours meilleur.

(Gabrielle Roy, La détresse et l'enchantement)

 

La détresse et l'enchantement is a great autobiography of a woman artist.  And as any great biography it is both unique and typical. Actually it is unique and typical on not just one, but at least two levels.  The first level is a story of a young woman searching for her path in life, and the second is a story of a Manitoban French-Canadian in the first third of the 20th century, and both stories are relatable and extraordinary at the same time.

Histoire du Manitoba français : de Gabrielle Roy à Daniel Lavoie (1916-1968) / Jacqueline Blay (Saint-Boniface, Man. : Éditions des Plaines, 2016)

This book is volume 3 of the series on the history of the French Manitoba published by Les Éditions du Blé / Les Éditions des Plaines and it covers 1916-1968, the period defined by existence of the Association d’éducation des Canadiens français du Manitoba (Manitoba French-Canadian education association), the organization that made possible teaching French language in Manitoba’s schools during those 50+ years when it was prohibited by the provincial government, thus saving the culture from becoming extinct.