OM, NÉZET-SÉGUIN HIT THE ROAD
Orchestre Métropolitain records album
The Orchestre Métropolitain, which for decades has assiduously toured the island of Montreal and cultivated crowds in LaSalle, Pierrefonds and St-Léonard, will take its act to Amsterdam, Cologne, Dortmund, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Paris a year from now — two months after an album on the storied Deutsche Grammophon label hits the retail and virtual shelves.
“Thirty-five years seem a long time in Quebec time,” Yannick Nézet-Séguin, OM artistic director and chief conductor, said this week, referring to the age of the ensemble. “But in a way, for an orchestra, this is young.
“I think it was good to wait for the right time to have international exposure.”
Recording sessions, which must be interspersed with rehearsals for a Russian program Sunday in the Maison symphonique, are taking place in Église TrèsSaint-Nom-de-Jésus, a grandiose deconsecrated edifice south of the Olympic Stadium.
On the DG playlist are French and Italian selections as sung by the Mexican-born French tenor Rolando Villazón and the Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov.
“They are both in good voice,” Nézet-Séguin said. “We are having a great time.” Repertoire is still under wraps, but the conductor assures us that Abdrazakov’s flexible high range makes tenorbaritone duets feasible.
One impetus for the DG project, according to Nézet-Séguin, was the high regard of Villazón for the OM after a recital in the Maison symphonique in 2015. “He fell in love with the orchestra,” Nézet-Séguin said. “Then he went to DG and said the next recording should be with Yannick and his orchestra.”
The double-whammy announcement confirms, if any confirmation were needed, the loyalty of the conductor to the hometown band that gave him his chance in 2000. Nézet-Séguin is better known internationally as the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra (since 2012) and the Metropolitan Opera (starting in 2020). He has toured with such stellar ensembles as the Bavarian State Radio Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic.
The 2017 tour will mark the OM’s first journey overseas. Seven concerts are wedged into eight days, starting on Nov. 26 in the 2002-vintage Konzerthaus in Dortmund, Germany and concluding on Dec. 2 in Philharmonie in Paris. This facility opened last year in the Parc de la Villette, the former meat-packing district in 19th arrondissement.
Other stops are in Cologne (Kölner Philharmonie), Amsterdam (the celebrated Royal Concertgebouw, the only 19thcentury hall on the agenda), Rotterdam (De Doelen, where NézetSéguin is well known as principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic) and Hamburg (the spectacular and soon-to-open Elbphilharmonie waterfront complex). Parisians will hear two programs in two nights.
Tour repertoire comprises four French selections, including Debussy’s La Mer; two works by Elgar, including the Enigma Variations; and two Canadian compositions, Pierre Mercure’s colourful Kaléidoscope of 1948 and Exil intérieur (2012) by Éric Champagne, a former OM composer-in-residence.
YNS and the OM have recorded La Mer on the ATMA label. As for the Enigma Variations, the conductor and orchestra performed this British favourite in Ottawa and Toronto in 2015.
Another reprise from the Ontario excursion is Elgar’s Cello Concerto with Stéphane Tétreault as soloist. The presence of this young Quebecer and his Stradivarius instrument draws attention to the role of Jacqueline Desmarais as a supporter of the tour. The Montreal philanthropist, who made the Strad acquisition possible, is thanked explicitly in the tour press release for her generosity.
There are other Québécois touches. Quebec contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, who is well known in France, sings Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été song cycle. Montreal-born Frenchman Jean-Guihen Queyras will play Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and the French pianist Alexandre Tharaud, a frequent soloist with Les Violons du Roy, is heard in Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand.
Nézet-Séguin said the initial tour invitation came from the Philharmonie in Paris, where it was also suggested that a mix of
Quebec and French soloists, the latter preferably with Quebec connections, would work well.
YNS proposed the repertoire, which mixes music from “the two traditions,” British and French. The Canadian content, he said, was neither expected by government funding organizations nor resented by European presenters.
“There was no pressure anywhere, and also no resistance,” Nézet-Séguin said. “Which is remarkable. No venue said, ‘No, we don’t want your pieces from Quebec because they are not as well known, for ticket sales.’ Rather the opposite.”
Mercure’s Kaléidoscope, the conductor observes, is now stigmatized as a “classic” and therefore rarely performed in Quebec. Tour exposure will give it new life.
“It’s not a responsibility, it’s an opportunity, when we go on tour, to feature our own music,” he added.
Nézet-Séguin notes that the double threshold of touring in Europe and recording for DG was not reached overnight. Recordings for the Quebec-based but internationally distributed ATMA label have functioned as calling cards for the OM in Europe.
“When I visit all these venues and cities, I could really witness the awareness people had of the Orchestre Métropolitain. We could have had double of the dates we have, the interest was so high.
“Only my time couldn’t allow for more. Maybe, eventually, there will be a second tour.”
The surprising announcement of a European tour by the Orchestre Métropolitain leads a Montrealer to wonder whether the city’s traditional musical ambassadors, Kent Nagano and the OSM, have any plans. An OSM source says no tours have been announced, and a player confirms none are rumoured. Nagano and the OSM undertook a 10-concert tour of the United States last March. akaptainis@sympatico.ca