POWERFULLY VOICED DIVA PAYS TRIBUTE TO WOMEN
Soprano Marie-Josée Lord At Dominion-Chalmers The Ottawa Chamberfest opened Thursday night with a concert tribute to women in song, curated by soprano Marie-Josée Lord.
Lord is one Quebec’s most popular sopranos, although her star is just beginning to rise in the rest of the country. She likes to balance her operatic career with concert projects that indulge her curiosity about other musical genres, including pop, musical theatre and world beats. With Femmes, her latest endeavour, she portrays a range of female archetypes, characters and performers who have inspired her.
Lord has an ebullient, exuberant personality, and embraces her diva role with relish. Wearing a gold lamé headwrap and a flowing black caftan embellished with colourful sequins, she channelled the queenly style and demeanour of Leontyne Price and Jessye Norman. She was backed by her excellent pianist Hugues Cloutier, along with violinist Ana Drobac and cellist Loredana Zanca.
It was a mystery to many in the audience why Lord chose to sing with a microphone. She tried to explain with self-deprecating comments about “balance” and singers wanting everything to be perfect. But she certainly didn’t need it from an amplification standpoint, and it was a distraction.
Concerto pour une Voix, by French crossover composer Saint-Preux, was a hit in 1969, popularized by singer Danielle Licari. Lord’s solidly operatic version was very correct but lacked the charm of Licari’s jazzy scatting and breathy, gamine voice. The same was true for Edith Piaf’s La Vie en Rose, where the opulent vocal production clashed with the song’s street-urchin simplicity.
There was a sense of “Ah, at last” when Lord switched to the classical genre. She possesses a richly coloured soprano, expansive and generous, with a powerful, inky lower register and thrilling, ringing high notes. She’s also a marvellous vocal actress who brings each of her heroines to life with sincere, apparently spontaneous expression.
Lord won acclaim early in her career for her Puccini heroines, and it was easy to see why. Her Un bel di from Madama Butterfly had a kind of wild, fanatical hope, while Senza Mamma from Suor Angelica was utterly heartbreaking. The Countess’s aria Dove Sono, from Marriage of Figaro, shifted convincingly from quiet wistfulness to firm conviction.
Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix from Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila is for mezzo-soprano, but if it sat a little low for Lord — some passages sounded forced and chesty — she sang it with melting sensuality and amorous fervour.
Lord engaged in some goodnatured ribbing with her pianist in the music hall ditty J’ai deux amants. Musetta’s aria Quando m’en vo from La Bohème was taken at a more leisurely pace than usual but was still full of flirting and sass.
Lord saved the best for last: an astonishing performance of Dismoi que je suis belle from Massenet’s Thais. The aria is almost Wagnerian in its huge range and intensity, and Lord sang it with both technical bravura and gripping dramatic effect, ending her brilliant final high note in a shriek of despair.
The soprano played a bit hard to get before agreeing to an encore, kicking off her towering heels to sing Et maintenant, the original French version of What Now, My Love.