Forrester favourites
Maureen Forrester is largely known for her oratorio, orchestral and lieder work. She is renowned for her work in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (Resur
rection) and his Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), as well as art songs by Brahms, Schumann and Strauss.
However, the singer, notable for her fierce dedication to Canadian music, also performed and premiered a number of homegrown compositions, including “Trois Poèmes de St-Jean de la Croix” by Gabriel Charpentier, “Adieu Robert Schumann” by R. Murray Schafer, “Three Sonnets of Shakespeare” by Jean Coulthard and selections from Six Folk Songs of
Eastern Canada by Keith Bissell, among others. Harry Somers’ Five Songs for Dark Voice was commissioned specifically for Forrester by the Stratford Festival, where she premiered it in August 1956.
Forrester’s performances on the opera stage were varied. She sang a diverse range of roles, including Brangane in Wagner’s Tristan und
Isolde, the Witch in Norman Campbell’s version of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Madame Flora in Menotti’s The Medium, Herodias in Strauss’s Salome, the Marquise in Donizetti’s La fille du régiment, Madame de la Haltière in Massenet’s Cendrillon and the Countess in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades. She also performed in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas in the 1980s.