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.

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 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.

Fire Hydrants of Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, QC

A few years ago, while making a tour of villages from the Quebec's Most Beautiful Villages list  (Les plus beaux villages du Québec) we found ourselves in Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu. What I remember about it four years later is that every single fire hydrant in that village is painted and in a different way. Most of them are various characters, which makes so much sense: I myself, when I look at ordinary fire hydrants I always see people in them.