{"id":165395,"date":"2026-09-25T14:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T18:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/?post_type=interviews&p=165395"},"modified":"2026-09-25T15:33:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T19:33:41","slug":"operactuel-main-show-multilayered-deep-nourishing-entertaining","status":"publish","type":"interviews","link":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/operactuel-main-show-multilayered-deep-nourishing-entertaining\/","title":{"rendered":"Oper’Actuel Main Show: Multilayered, Deep, Eclectic, Entertaining"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the Chants Libres festival\u2019s highlight, the Oper\u2019Actuel performance gives Montreal\u2019s soprano Sarah Albu free rein, accompanied by the Paramirabo Ensemble, this time conducted by the American artist Stephen Mulligan. The Oper\u2019Actuel show, considered as this ending week\u2019s festival main event, is a special production by Chants Libres co-presented with Le Vivier, that is happening on Friday and Saturday September 25-26, in a very special context at the salle Paul-Buissonneau. And Sarah Albu, herself a gifted and visionary soprano signer, is the curator or the artistic director of this production. She\u2019s here interviewed with Stephen Mulligan, conductor, instrumentalist , interpreter.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MORE INFOS HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


PAN M 360: So let’s talk about the genesis of this project and where it leads you.<\/strong>
Sarah Albu:<\/strong> I was asked by Marie-Annick B\u00e9liveau, the artistic director of Chants Libres, to curate this edition of Oper\u2019Actuel, that has traditionally been a laboratory for excerpts of operatic works in progress or performative works involving the voice that are in progress. So when Marie-Annick approached me, she specifically wanted to look for pieces that go a little bit outside of a normal operatic framework, even inside of a contemporary idiom.
So we had an open call and I was able to choose six works from the open call. Some came from people who I knew and whose works I knew. Some came from people that I had never heard of and didn’t know at all. And I decided not to have a theme right away and to just see what came and what kind of links we could trace between the pieces. And also for the cast, I offered myself as a cast member, as a soloist or chorister. But there was also an opportunity for the composers and creators of these works to bring their own collaborators in, or we could find somebody.
PAN M 360: Wow. About the aesthetics of this music, can we have some hints about the way it’s been built and crafted?<\/strong>
Sarah Albu:<\/strong> Absolutely. They’re actually aesthetically very diverse, the works. They come from composers who have a background more in early music. Some who come more from music theater. Some who come more from musical theater. Some who come more from performance art and digital arts. If you want, I can list them.
So I’ll list them quickly. We have Marcela Lucateli, a Brazilian composer who lives in Denmark, who works with a lot of theater and performance in a very avant-garde language. Avant-garde, but fun. I think a through line of this is political and fun and entertaining. Political, beautiful, fun and entertaining.
We have Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Daigneault, a wonderful countertenor and music director, working mostly in early music, but who’s composed a piece with text from Marie-Pierre de Brienne. Oh, yeah. And that’s a science fiction story that deals with post-apocalyptic society and mind uploading.
Then we have a work from Victoria Bernath, who lives in London, England, who’s joining us from London. And her piece is about the British-Mexican surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. This one’s got a bit more of a serious feeling to it. It deals with a woman who’s been institutionalized in a sanatorium.
Next on the program is a piece by Gabo Champagne with a libretto from Gigi Houle. And that’s L’Op\u00e9ra Laurentien. And Gabo’s aim was to write an opera in joual, and it has a bit of a folklore twist with a contemporary twist. So that one’s a lot of fun and a lot in the textures and sounds and joy of that music. It’s also a take on a biblical story. It’s a twist. A biblical story. What part of Bible?
After that, we have Daniela Falcon, who is from Mexico City, and she’s also here with us rehearsing. And her piece is called La Peste Bianca, and it’s a critique of the pharmaceutical industry and corruption in health care. So very relevant and very timely. And that one is absurd and comedic, but also very, very dark.
And then the final work on the program, Care by Erin Gee and Laurence Dauphinais, quite a well-known actress, who’s written the text. Music is from Erin Gee, who’s also quite a well-known artist in Quebec, in Canada for digital arts and electro-acoustic composition. And I won’t give away too much, but it takes place inside a womb.
PAN M 360 : So there’s probably a link between all those pieces. What would be the common thread?<\/strong>
Sarah Albu: <\/strong>There are a few links. We were just discussing this. There’s definitely a feminist link. There’s a queer link, too. I didn’t talk so much about\u2026 Mental health survival. Survival, yeah. The first piece on the program is a participatory experience, so the audience can participate. And it’s a class where humans can learn tools for surviving modern times.
So there’s questions of gender, questions of taking care of the earth, questions of wisdom from animals. There’s a link with absurd humor and an uncanniness throughout the pieces, as well, too. Some of them are dealing with pretty rough subject matter, but we tried to make it either beautiful or entertaining.
PAN M 360: Yeah, we must relax and have fun sometimes! Okay, so just let’s talk about the soloists. So maybe you can, Sarah and Stephen, pinpoint the people you’re working with.<\/strong>
Sarah Albu:<\/strong> Yeah, we have a large cast actually. There are nine people. So these are the artists who have written a piece for the workshop and who will also perform.
So we have Victoria Bernath who is singing and playing viola. Very, very sensitive artist.
Stephen : Not easy to sing and play at the same time. Not easy to sing and play viola at the same time. Very, very inspiring. A triple threat.
Sarah Albu:<\/strong> Yeah, more quadruple , quintuple !
Then Erin Gee and Laurence Dauphinais are both performing roles in their piece that they’ve written together, Care. And that’s very, very theatrical, very whimsical, but also a bit dark. And they bring a very special, special and experimental quality.
Stephen Mulligan:<\/strong> One thing that’s interesting, especially about Care, which has many of the soloists of other pieces singing in the chorus, is that the vocal style is quite different. And so the singers are having to use a lot of different vocal techniques, alternating whether or not they’re singing with vibrato, how they are switching between registers. The lyric diction of every piece is different.
And the concert is in both English and French, and sort of local French and sort of an overly haughty high French, international French. That’s right. So, the lyric diction and vocal technique of every piece is also different. And those who are singing in multiple pieces, which is many, have this challenge of switching modes.
Sarah Albu: <\/strong>Yeah. In Erin and Laurence’s piece, there are a lot of ASMR, close mic, whispery sounds, but then it goes into full on lyrical singing, Ligeti-like textures. So that, and that one has, that has everybody that has the, the full core cast.
I guess I can name them all now.
\u00c9milie Versailles,<\/strong> wonderful soprano on the soprano one part, in, for that piece.
Virginie Mongeau <\/strong>on soprano two in Erin’s piece, also singing in several other pieces. Great soprano. And both of these sopranos sing a lot of contemporary music, really fabulous, reliable, and so sensitive, so expressive. I’m just so happy. I just had this rehearsal and I love everybody. It’s wonderful.
I’m singing <\/strong>soprano three on that part. And I would say that’s the most dynamic part.It has some really growly lows and some kind of fry stuff and some high B flats and everything in between.
We have Liz Lima<\/strong>, who’s a fabulous improviser and mezzo, new music vocalist, actor, composer as well. Wonderful artist!
Clayton Kennedy <\/strong>is a baritone, he sings a lot of, sings a lot of Bach actually. But Clayton can do anything. I’ve known him since 2007, and I’m very happy that he’s here with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there’s also Marie-Annick<\/strong> who is making a cameo in one role. Yeah.
So there’s a lot required. And all of the singers, I would say, have to go from a kind of pop cabaret style to a lyrical singing style to just speaking text in French or in English to whispering. So that really reflects the way that I have approached contemporary music singing. And I think it’s part of why Marie-Annick asked me to curate this show. We don’t throw out the lyrical singing, but we bring other things in and we take it all as seriously.
Stephen Mulligan :<\/strong> Well, and it’s one of the benefits of performing in a really intimate venue, is that you can use all of these different vocal techniques with the small venue, small instrumentation, and you get all of the color and detail in the voice that you might not on a grand stage.
PAN M 360: Yeah! About the ensemble, now.<\/strong>
Sarah Albu:<\/strong> Which is Paramirabo. We have everybody for this concert, but not in each piece. Some of the pieces have everybody. But all the ensemble is present. There’s one piece that only has one voice, flute and percussion. I believe that’s the smallest instrumentation we got. We also have a guest, one of the composers will also play viola and sing in her piece. So we have a few composers performing in their pieces. But it goes from this very small format, which is the three of us, to the entire Ensemble Paramirabo, a chorus of five singers and two soloists.
PAN M 360: Stephen, how did you see the conducting of all that multi-layered approach ? How do you gather the instrumentalists and you link them with the singers and actors, I would say?<\/strong>
Stephen Mulligan: <\/strong>It’s a great question. I think… Is it true that there’s always a conductor? For Op\u00e9ra Actuelle, yes. The project comes together so quickly. Over the course of a week, we go from not having met many of us to performing for the public, and a conductor can be very useful in this case. I find myself being an organizer this week. So I am an interpreter, and I think that conductors can be great interpreters, but that is taking up less of my concentration than translating the composer’s wishes in a practical way to everybody who’s performing.
PAN M 360: Middle management haha!<\/strong>
Stephen Mulligan:<\/strong> Yeah I’m the middle manager ! Well, the word conductor, you know, comes from basically just being a medium through which the energy from the composer passes to the performers. And I feel like I’m really doing that this week. Many of the composers are not using music notation in their regular practice, and so the information that I’m getting is a combination of reading in a sort of objective way what’s on the page, but also interviewing them and trying to understand through their words and their personalities and behavior what their North Star is.
PAN M 360: Yeah. So you customize the chart in a way with the different interpreters and aesthetics involved<\/strong>.
Stephen Mulligan: <\/strong>Yes. And the ensemble and the singers have to know what in the scores is fixed and what is a little bit looser. And sometimes merely an image or an adjective can sort of get us to be out of the page and more into the sort of North Star of what the composer is going for.
Sarah Albu:<\/strong> I really appreciate this term North Star. When we had some Zoom meetings, Stephen is visiting us from Berlin via New York. Very jet set, Stephen (laughs). We have some Zoom interviews with the composers and Stephen asked, what is your North Star of composing? What are you trying to do with your music? Because Stephen is also a composer. So this is why I wanted to absolutely have him on this project when I was asked who I would like to work with.
PAN M 360: Because he’s able to do the three things, interpretation, conducting, and composing.
Sarah Albu: Yeah, and getting inside the mind of a composer too.<\/strong>
Stephen Mulligan: <\/strong>It’s not easy to have six new composers.I mean, if I were to conduct, if I were to come and guest with the Montreal Symphony, it would be either all composers whose language I knew, or perhaps there would be one new composer. But now it’s six new composers. Yeah, it’s a lot of work.It’s a lot of, yes, learning new languages.
Luckily, I was able to find touch points. For example, with Jean-Francois, we talked about his Renaissance sources, Renaissance sources of inspiration and where he pulled some tunes. With Victoria, she gave me the clue of Hungarian expressionism. You know, sort of, what is the language that I already know, which can be a leaping off point. So if I start thinking, Kurtag, Ligeti, Bart\u00f3k, then I can go to Victoria in one step instead of from nothing.
PAN M 360: Interesting. I know, Sarah, that you’ve played and worked with a lot of people in this cast. So this is a sort of extended family of your own world, in a way. What does it represent for you? An important thing ? A milestone ?<\/strong>
Sarah Albu: <\/strong>Yeah, absolutely. I was very honored to be asked to curate something like this. It’s been a huge amount of work. And a lot of language learning. And when I collaborate with composers, I like to get as much information as possible and be very involved. And I’ve learned through this process that, well, I knew it before, but it’s been reinforced in this process, that everyone needs a little bit of a different kind of communication. So for the last six months, I’ve been communicating very regularly with everybody. And even though I’m not singing in all of these works, I feel like I’m living in these six worlds now with these people.
And I just love that. And in that way, for me, experimentalism is not about one aesthetic or one sound. It’s about an approach to music. So for me, asking, okay, what does it mean if a performance artist approaches a contemporary music ensemble? Or what does it mean if someone who usually does early music tries to write contemporary opera? What does it mean if we put everybody in the lobby instead of in their seats? These are the questions. It’s not about one aesthetic.
PAN M 360: Well, it’s totally eclectic and you always have to find the cohesive links. Yeah. And I suppose it happens because you seem to be very happy today<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah Albu:<\/strong> We’re very happy. Well, we had the first reading of everything this morning, and I feel great about it. And sometimes you take a risk. Sure. As I said earlier, I chose pieces based on what resonated with me and what I thought would be timely and what I thought would fit together. And some of them, the links weren’t obvious. The links are underground, even if they\u2019re not immediately obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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