La Reine-garçon
Julien Bilodeau & Michel Marc BouchardDates are unavailable at the moment
JANUARY 31, FEBRUARY 2, 5, 7, 9, 13, AND 15, 2025
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
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Queen Christine of Sweden was raised as a boy by her father during a period of extraordinary change. At the height of the Scientific Revolution, she employed the philosopher René Descartes as her tutor, sparking an intellectual and spiritual transformation of massive historical significance.
The first-ever co-commission between the Canadian Opera Company and Opéra de Montréal, La Reine-garçon marks an important chapter in Canadian operatic storytelling. Sopranos Kirsten MacKinnon and Kirsten LeBlanc star as the Swedish queen who navigated a course between faith and knowledge, love and duty.
CAST AND CREATIVE TEAMS
Conductor: Johannes Debus
Director: Angela Konrad
Set Designer: Anick La Bissonnière
Costume Designer: Sebastien Dionne
Lighting Designer: Éric Champoux
Projections Designer: Alexandre Desjardins
Price Family Chorus Master: Sandra Horst
Christine: Kirsten MacKinnon, Kirsten LeBlanc (February 7)
Karl Gustav: Philippe Sly
Johan Oxenstierna: Isaiah Bell
Axel Oxenstierna: Daniel Okulitch
René Descartes: Owen McCausland
Marie-Éléonor: Aline Kutan
Assistant to Déscartes: Alain Coulombe
With the COC Orchestra and Chorus
A co-production with Opéra de Montréal
SYNOPSIS IN A MINUTE
Uppsala Castle, 1649. Queen Christine, more masculine than her men of war, more erudite than her scholars, brings René Descartes to her kingdom to teach her the mechanism of the passions that inhabit the soul. Torn between the masculine and the feminine, between faith and knowledge, between her love for a woman and the State which demands an heir, she seeks the truth, her truth–despite the rapacity of the nobles, the ardour of the suitors, her mother's madness, and, above all, despite the outbursts of her own passions.
Julien Bilodeau (Québec, 1974) is one of the most prominent composers of his generation. Winner of two first prizes with major distinctions at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal, he then placed in Paris (IRCAM, CCMIX) and in Frankfurt (Ensemble Modern Akademie, Frankfurt). In 2006, the Canada Council for the Arts awarded him the Robert Flemming Prize in recognition of his promise as a young composer. His works, whose style and aesthetics are very open and varied, have been performed around the world by leading ensembles including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Modern Ensemble, the Itinerary Ensemble, the Orchestra from the Americas of New York, the Metropolitan Orchestra of Greater Montreal and the New Modern Ensemble.
In 2011, Maestro Kent Nagano commissioned “Un cri élève nos chants,” a work premiered by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of the inaugural evening of the Maison Symphonique de Montréal. Julien Bilodeau is a Fellow of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Arts and Letters Council of Quebec and the Quebec Research Fund, Society and Culture. His first opera, Another brick in the wall, directed by Dominic Champagne on the libretto by Roger Waters, was premiered in March 2017 by the Opéra de Montréal.
Playwright, screenwriter, librettist and teacher, Michel Marc Bouchard was born in February 1958 in Saint-Coeur de Marie (Alma) at Lac Saint-Jean, Quebec, Canada.
Bouchard has written more than 25 plays that have been translated into several languages and performed in the most prestigious theatres and festivals worldwide. His best known works are: Lilies (Les Feluettes); The Orphan Muses (Les Muses orphelines); Down Dangerous Passes Road (Le Chemin des passes dangereuses); The Tale of Teeka (L’Histoire de l’oie); The Coronation Voyage (Le Voyage du Couronnement); Heat Waves (Les Grandes Chaleurs); Tom at the Farm (Tom à la ferme); Christina, the Girl King (Christine, la reine-garçon); The Divine, a Play for Sarah Bernhardt (La Divine Illusion) and The Night Logan woke up (La Nuit où Laurier Gaudreault s’est reveille) and Kisses Deep (Embrasse).
His works have been performed in more than fifty countries and to date, there are more than 450 productions in twenty languages.
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Sung in French with English SURTITLESTM
CAST AND CREATIVE TEAMS
Conductor: Johannes Debus
Director: Angela Konrad
Set Designer: Anick La Bissonnière
Costume Designer: Sebastien Dionne
Lighting Designer: Éric Champoux
Projections Designer: Alexandre Desjardins
Price Family Chorus Master: Sandra Horst
Christine: Kirsten MacKinnon, Kirsten LeBlanc (February 7)
Karl Gustav: Philippe Sly
Johan Oxenstierna: Isaiah Bell
Axel Oxenstierna: Daniel Okulitch
René Descartes: Owen McCausland
Marie-Éléonor: Aline Kutan
Assistant to Déscartes: Alain Coulombe
With the COC Orchestra and Chorus
A co-production with Opéra de Montréal -
SYNOPSIS IN A MINUTE
Uppsala Castle, 1649. Queen Christine, more masculine than her men of war, more erudite than her scholars, brings René Descartes to her kingdom to teach her the mechanism of the passions that inhabit the soul. Torn between the masculine and the feminine, between faith and knowledge, between her love for a woman and the State which demands an heir, she seeks the truth, her truth–despite the rapacity of the nobles, the ardour of the suitors, her mother's madness, and, above all, despite the outbursts of her own passions. -
Julien Bilodeau
Julien Bilodeau (Québec, 1974) is one of the most prominent composers of his generation. Winner of two first prizes with major distinctions at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal, he then placed in Paris (IRCAM, CCMIX) and in Frankfurt (Ensemble Modern Akademie, Frankfurt). In 2006, the Canada Council for the Arts awarded him the Robert Flemming Prize in recognition of his promise as a young composer. His works, whose style and aesthetics are very open and varied, have been performed around the world by leading ensembles including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Modern Ensemble, the Itinerary Ensemble, the Orchestra from the Americas of New York, the Metropolitan Orchestra of Greater Montreal and the New Modern Ensemble.
In 2011, Maestro Kent Nagano commissioned “Un cri élève nos chants,” a work premiered by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of the inaugural evening of the Maison Symphonique de Montréal. Julien Bilodeau is a Fellow of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Arts and Letters Council of Quebec and the Quebec Research Fund, Society and Culture. His first opera, Another brick in the wall, directed by Dominic Champagne on the libretto by Roger Waters, was premiered in March 2017 by the Opéra de Montréal. -
Michel Marc Bouchard
Playwright, screenwriter, librettist and teacher, Michel Marc Bouchard was born in February 1958 in Saint-Coeur de Marie (Alma) at Lac Saint-Jean, Quebec, Canada.
Bouchard has written more than 25 plays that have been translated into several languages and performed in the most prestigious theatres and festivals worldwide. His best known works are: Lilies (Les Feluettes); The Orphan Muses (Les Muses orphelines); Down Dangerous Passes Road (Le Chemin des passes dangereuses); The Tale of Teeka (L’Histoire de l’oie); The Coronation Voyage (Le Voyage du Couronnement); Heat Waves (Les Grandes Chaleurs); Tom at the Farm (Tom à la ferme); Christina, the Girl King (Christine, la reine-garçon); The Divine, a Play for Sarah Bernhardt (La Divine Illusion) and The Night Logan woke up (La Nuit où Laurier Gaudreault s’est reveille) and Kisses Deep (Embrasse).
His works have been performed in more than fifty countries and to date, there are more than 450 productions in twenty languages.
2024/2025 season creative: BT/A
