Additional Information
Dedicated to the exploration of opera and lyric song in today’s context, the Chants libres company is piloting a Laboratoire lyrik, in which artists explore the concepts of presence and absence. Presented at La Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines this Wednesday, March 12, as part of Semaine du Neuf, this research-creation project brings together scenographer Cédric Delorme-Bouchard, actress Jennyfer Desbiens, cellist Audréanne Filion, mezzo-soprano Marie-Annick Béliveau and composer Frédéric Le Bel, in a triptych for voice, cello and electronics. The dramaturgy of this work draws on voice, sound, body movement and light. Metamorphoses take place, immersion is imminent. Beforehand, mezzo-soprano Marie-Annick Béliveau, artistic director of Chants Libres, explains the ins and outs.
PAN M 360: Please tell us about the lyrik laboratory, its foundations and its connection with this production presented at Semaine du Neuf.
Marie-Annick Béliveau: When I took over as artistic director of the company in the summer of 2022, I felt it was important to maintain Chants Libres’ mission of lyric research and creation. I see it in three parts: creating new repertoire, exploring new forms, and seeking out new creative processes.
It’s precisely with the aim of giving us opportunities to explore new processes of lyric creation that I decided to organize lyric laboratories: creative events that mobilize more modest means, circumscribed in time, lasting just a few days and allowing us to test ideas and proposals, without the aim of producing a new show.
Producing a lyric show is a major operation, often spanning two or three years, which mobilizes considerable technical, financial and human resources. And so, when we work on these new creations, we’re always more or less in “solution mode”, looking for what will work. The lyriks labs are an opportunity to try out formulas, in content and form, without looking for a solution. The process is more interesting than the end result.
This is what we’re presenting on Wednesday March 12, and it’s the fruit of the work of a small team of 5 people, several conversations, sharing of ideas, brainstorming and some thirty hours of work in the studio.
PAN M 360: “In this new Chants Libres lyrik laboratory, the artists explore the concepts of presence and absence. But what else?
Marie-Annick Béliveau : The lyrik 03 laboratory, which will be presented at the chapel next Wednesday, is in fact the culmination of a conversation. Frédéric LeBel once proposed an idea for a laboratory, for which he would compose music for voice, cello and electro. His idea was to have the voice and cello heard live and/or recorded, and to play with processing and spatialization to create ambiguity: where do the sounds we hear come from?
I had seen two of his creations in which he succeeded in creating a dramaturgy by playing with the bodies we see, those we guess, and those that disappear. We are three performers on stage, who is sound? who is not? Why does she sing? Why doesn’t she sing when we can hear her?
PAN M 360: What other projects does Chants libres have in store with this Laboratoire lyric?
Marie-Annick Béliveau: What’s next for Laboratoire lyrik 03? I’m sure we’ll all come away from the experience somewhat transformed. What interests me is proposing to artists and spectators that they imagine creating a new opera show based on new paradigms, for example, without a story, or without a score, or in intergenericity, in decompartmentalization. Putting unusual ingredients into the pot. How will these research-creation efforts influence our future productions? It’s hard to say, but it’s all about developing a posture.
PAN M 360: Can you elaborate on this question of presence and absence?
Marie-Annick Béliveau: Frédéric composed a duet for voice and cello that we perform three times, in three different combinations. Cédric has created a dramaturgy based on our three bodies, the lighting that reveals or conceals them, and the way we look at each other. Depending on who we see or hear, but also who we don’t see, who looks at the others and who is looked at, relationships are created, complicities, rivalries, games of domination and submission.
I’ve always found it fascinating how, for a singer, her body on stage, whether immobile in front of the piano or performing a scene from The Marriage of Figaro, the singer’s body is very present, the spectator watching the artist as much as listening to her, her face, her gaze, how she moves. He listens to her even when she’s not singing. Initially, I really liked the idea of people seeing me and hearing my voice when I’m not singing, and hearing me but seeing Jennyfer, and wondering whether it’s her or me singing, or waiting for her to sing in turn.
I’m going to make you smile, but I love the moment in the Sempre Libera of Verdi’s Traviata, when Violetta sings alone in her home, and all of a sudden we hear Alfredo singing outside… absent but so present! Verdi’s idea is frighteningly effective. We wait for him to return, and no! Curtain!
PAN M 360: How is the public involved in this process?
Marie-Annick Béliveau: The public is part of the equation when you’re doing creative, exploratory work. I’m perhaps more sensitive to this because I’m a performer. Often we work in the studio, trying things out, testing, making choices, but I know that all ideas, no matter how good they are in the studio, remain hypotheses until they are presented to an audience. And it’s often only after you’ve sung in front of an audience that you can tell what works, what doesn’t, what will work and what should be abandoned.
In fact, I’m sure it’ll be on Thursday that I’ll really be able to tell you what the point of this lyrik laboratory was, and we’ll be able to grasp it when the audience is in the auditorium.
And I’m delighted to be able to invite the audience to come and share these moments of exploration with us, to have a daring audience, who come to see and hear creative lyric art in a phase of development.
PAN M 360: How did the project develop with scenographer Cédric Delorme-Bouchard, actress Jennyfer Desbiens, cellist Audréanne Filion, composer Frédéric LeBel and yourself?
Marie-Annick Béliveau: First, we had a meeting, a conversation, to get to know each other, to talk about these ideas of absence and presence, about what makes up the dramaturgy. We also talked about the idea of doing an opera without a text, without a narrative at the outset. Then we read the first versions of Frédéric’s score, and Cédric and Jennyfer imagined how it could be transposed into movement and displacement.
What’s fascinating is that in the neon-lit studio, with no electronics or microphones, it was clear that Frédéric could “hear” all the sound processing in his head, and Cédric could “see” the scenography and lighting in his head too. They’d describe them to us, but it was all very abstract.
PAN M 360: Voice, cello, electronics. How was this work constructed?
Marie-Annick Béliveau: I can’t comment on Frédéric’s compositional approach, but what is certain is that there is a dialogue between voice and cello from the outset. But the moment when Audréanne and I take up a real challenge is when, to rehearse the piece a second time, we swap parts. Audréanne plays the vocal part, and I sing the cello part, which is quite perilous. We have to “interpret” the score to play what’s written, but above all we have to figure out how to imitate each other, and at the very least make the exchange audible. The electronic part is an amalgam of recording and direct processing, and the whole thing is spatialized.
PAN M 360: Why choose a triptych?
Marie-Annick Béliveau: There are several reasons why we decided to do three versions of the same piece: firstly, the question of exchanging parts, and secondly, quite simply, because we are three performers, so each receives her share of attention.
PAN M 360: Where do you see this production in your season of Chants libres?
Marie-Annick Béliveau: As luck would have it, we’ve had 3 creations in less than 11 months – a very intense year for us. These creative projects have been in the works for 12, 24 or more months. But this lyrik laboratory project, this meeting between Frédéric and Cédric, was very close to my heart, and Le Vivier’s offer to be in the chapel as part of the Semaine du Neuf program was a great opportunity.
PAN M 360: This concert is part of the revival of the Chants libres company. Can you tell us a little about your still recent tenure as artistic director?
Marie-Annick Béliveau : A wind of renewal, certainly, but it’s very important for me and Pauline Vaillancourt (whom I’m replacing) to remain faithful and loyal to the company’s mandate. When Pauline founded Chants Libres in 1990, it was almost impossible for a composer to find the means to create an opera in Quebec. The situation has changed, here and elsewhere, and the major opera houses are making a point of commissioning new repertoire, of presenting contemporary repertoire, and I’m really very happy about that.
The mandate of Chants Libres is, of course, to produce new works, but for me it’s especially important to focus our activities on research and creation.
Over the last few decades, dance and theater have seen major advances in the way they define themselves. In the performing arts, inter-artistic proposals are multiplying, and the boundaries between disciplines are becoming porous. This multi-faceted scene is generating a new audience, which is not a theater or dance audience, but above all a creative audience, thirsting for singular, dynamic, original proposals. I believe that creative lyric theater has a place in this movement. That’s the direction I want Chants Libres to take.
PAN M 360: What has the public’s reaction been since you took over? How is the relationship with the public evolving under your new management?
Marie-Annick Béliveau: The 24-25 season is the first that I can call my own, in which Chants Libres presents projects that I have piloted. It’s a little early to gauge how audiences are appreciating the direction I’m taking the company. However, I think that both the audience and the general public have noticed that all the projects presented this season or announced for next are co-productions. Opera and lyric theater are multi- or interdisciplinary forms, which lend themselves easily to the game of collective creation, and it’s natural for me, and even necessary, to develop projects in collaboration with artists from theater, dance, popular music, world music and the digital arts. We pool our skills, resources, audiences and references. That makes me very happy, and it makes the future of Chants Libres bright.
