Edwin Bélanger News
Canadian conductor, violinist, violist, arranger, and music educator (1910-2005)
Commemorations 2025 (Death: Edwin Bélanger)
- viola, violin
- Canada
- conductor, music teacher
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2024-03-24
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2021-04-27 08:09:19
Opera North launches its 2021/22 season and looks forward to the completion of the new Howard Opera Centre
Garry Walker conducting the Orchestra of Opera North. (Photo Justin Slee) Opera North has announced its plans for 2021/22, and it is heartening to see some of the company's cancelled projects re-appearing, with new productions of Carmen, Rigoletto and Alcina plus a concert staging of Parsifal. Alongside main-stage plans, the company's £18m redevelopment of its city centre home, the Howard Opera Centre, enter its final stages, and the Howard Assembly Room re-opens in October with a full programme. The season opens with the company's first new production of Bizet's Carmen in over a decade conducted by Garry Walker in his first production as Opera North's new music director, and directed by Edward Dick, who directed Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel in 2017 [see my review]. American mezzo-soprano Chrystal E. Williams sings Carmen with Canadian tenor Antoine Bélanger as Don José. The second new production is Verdi's Rigoletto directed by British Nigerian […]
2021-03-01 08:24:05
To delight the eyes and ears without the risk of sinning against reason or common sense: the creation of Reform Opera
[…] not without controversy, particularly the issue of quite what style to write in. His first opera Iphigénie en Aulide (1774) sparked huge controversy, with Gluck's opponents bringing in the leading Italian composer Niccolò Piccinni (1728-1800) to Paris to demonstrate the superiority of Neapolitan opera. Piccinni's Roland would premiere in Paris in 1776, though it was far more Italian than French, and Piccinni would go on to write several more operas for Paris. François-Joseph Bélanger: Set design for Gluck's Alceste in Paris Gluck followed this up with expansions of two of his Reform Operas. Orphée et Euridice came first, in 1774, with the hero now sung by an haut-contre and the work expanded with further dance episodes (including music lifted from Don Juan), then in 1776 came Alceste, but this had a more thorough-going re-composition. Gluck then courted controversy and set one of Philippe Quinault's librettos for Lully, […]
2020-03-21 11:03:15
Orchestre National de Lille on-line, with 'Carmen' and Mahler's symphonies
[…] is in fine form. The cast members are all, I think, Francophone which makes a big difference in this opera and all the soloists are off the book so that performances are engagingly dramatic. Aude Extrémo is a rich-voiced Carmen, moving between the sexy and the dramatic, this is definitely an account of the role I would love to see in the theatre. And this seems to have been her role debut! Canadian tenor Antoine Bélanger made a very intense and naively earnest Don José, with Bélanger freely using a lovely mezzo voce. Gabrielle Philiponet was a very self-possessed Micaëla, rising to the challenge of Act Three, whilst and Florian Sempey swaggered wonderfully as Escamillo. The smaller roles were all strongly sung, making this a very rewarding performance, with Pauline Texier as Frasquita, Adélaïde Rouyer as Mercédès (and I particularly loved the contrast between them and Aude Extremo in […]
2020-02-21 10:32:14
Opera North in 2020/21, new opera from Iain Bell and Will Todd, Handel's Alcina and a first Parsifal
[…] of the score. Dame Josephine Barstow and Lesley Garrett both reprise their roles, with Elin Pritchard joining the cast as Mary Kelly and with many roles taken by members of the Opera North Chorus.Edward Dick, who directed Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel in 2017 [see my review] directs Bizet's Carmen in Spring 2021 with Garry Walker conducting. The title role is sung by American mezzo-soprano Chrystal E Williams with Don Jose sung by Canadian tenor Antoine Bélanger. No word, yet about what version/edition of the opera is being used.Handel's Alcina is being given by Opera North for the first time in a new production by Tim Albery in Spring 2021, which will be created from fully recycled, re-used and second-hand sources, as part of our commitment to environmental responsibility. Irish soprano Máire Flavin is Alcina, and French soprano Lucie Chartin is Morgana; Chartin sang the role of Cleopatra in the recent […]
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- timeline: Conductors (North America). Performers (North America).
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