Audiences packed Salle Bourgie on Friday, October 11 to attend Les Violons du Roy’s concert, the first of the ensemble’s 2024-2025 season in the metropolis, which marks the start of its 40th anniversary celebrations.
In their introductory remarks, both Caroline Louis and Olivier Godin, the directors of Salle Bourgie, underlined the important contribution made by the ensemble, and recalled the long partnership between the venue and Les Violons du Roy, notably through the performance of the complete Bach cantatas, which has occupied their respective programs for the past eight years, and provided some very intense musical moments. In fact, the evening’s program included a small nod to this. Bernard Labadie, founder and musical director of the chamber orchestra from 1984 to 2014, also addressed the audience, highlighting the wild adventure and “little miracle” that is Les Violons du Roy. The conductor also thanked one of the founding members, violinist Nicole Trotier, who was retiring after this concert, which will conclude with another performance at the Palais Montcalm on October 12. The stage was thus set for an evening rich in emotion and pleasure. And that’s exactly the spirit in which the musicians of Les Violons du Roy gave this concert.
Divided into two parts, each was introduced by a Handel concerto grosso. Performed with energy and vivacity, these interpretations of instrumental concertante works, in addition to demonstrating the musicians’ playing and the orchestra’s palette of sound colors, served as preludes to Bach’s two cantatas for viola, featuring British countertenor Hugh Cutting. An alumnus of St. John’s College, Cambridge, the young opera artist is the first countertenor to win both the Kathleen Ferrier Award (2021) and the title of BBC New Generation Artist (2022 to 2024). One of the challenges of a voice like Cutting’s lies in projection, and it’s fair to say that on this level, the young singer particularly stands out with great vocal power, controlled and complementing the amplitude of the orchestra’s sound.
He is particularly noted for the clarity of his performances. His German pronunciation is precise, and the musical and textual discourse he weaves is limpid. His vocal agility came to the fore in the second aria of the cantata Geist und Seele wird verwirret [Spirit and soul are confused]. The aria “Gotte hat alles wohlgemacht” [God has made everything perfect] features a dialogue between organ and voice, supported by continuo. The vocal line competes with high-flying vocalizations that Cutting delivers with a heartfelt and admirable performance, but where one sometimes felt that he came to the end of his phrases slightly at the end of his aria, giving the impression that the phrase is incomplete and overshadowing the finales of certain words. The projection of surtitles at the back of the stage compensated for these slight imperfections, which on the whole never detracted from the meaning of the performance. Mélissande McNabney’s organ playing is also to be commended for the dexterity of her interpretation in lines just as exalted as those interpreted by Cutting.
With its serene, pastoral character, the second cantata of the evening, Vergnüte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust [Blessed peace, beloved bliss], showcased Hugh Cutting’s hushed, crystalline timbre. A particularly expressive moment, the aria “Wie jammern mich doch die verkehrten Herzen” [How I pity these rogue hearts] is a sparse dialogue devoid of any basso continuo, in which the string instruments (violins 1-2 and viola) play in unison with the voice and a two-manual organ. As Bourgie does not own such an instrument, two positive organs were required on stage for this piece. Played by Mélissande McNabney and Tom Annand, this distinct keyboard interplay highlighted the intertwining of vocal and instrumental lines, petrified of tense chords, accentuating the air’s plaintive, afflictive character.
Les Violons du Roy and Bernard Labadie found in this young British man the ideal Bach voice for their program. Hugh Cutting made an impressive debut, full of emotion, clarity and refinement, which the audience in Salle Bourgie returned with a long ovation.
Photo Credit: Pierre Langlois
