{"id":75049,"date":"2022-07-19T17:35:42","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T21:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/interviews-panm360\/yourcenar-une-ile-de-passions-interview-eric-champagne-opera-quebec-montreal\/"},"modified":"2022-07-19T20:10:28","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T00:10:28","slug":"yourcenar-une-ile-de-passions-interview-eric-champagne-opera-quebec-montreal","status":"publish","type":"interviews","link":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/yourcenar-une-ile-de-passions-interview-eric-champagne-opera-quebec-montreal\/","title":{"rendered":"“Yourcenar – une \u00eele de passions”: an intimate conversation with opera composer \u00c9ric Champagne"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yourcenar, une \u00eele de passions<\/em> is the next Quebec opera to be created. On July 28 and 30 in Quebec City<\/a>, and on August 4 and 6 in Montr\u00e9al<\/a>, local audiences will have the chance to experience an intimate view of the life of the great writer Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987), author of, among other things, the masterpiece M\u00e9moires d’Hadrien<\/em>, one of the great novels of the 20th century. With a libretto by H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Dorion and the late Marie-Claire Blais, composer \u00c9ric Champagne has set out to breathe musical life and psycho-emotional transcendence into the respectful, yet very intimate look at the unique life of this extraordinary woman. Pan M 360 spoke with \u00c9ric Champagne to better anticipate what the audience will see and hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00c9ric Champagne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Pan M 360: With just a few days to go before the opera’s premiere, how do you feel about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c9ric Champagne:<\/strong> I was calmer at the beginning of the week, but as the days go by, a little anxiety comes up, I must say. But nothing threatening. I am surrounded by an extraordinary team. I am particularly excited about the work of director Angela Konrad. She fascinates me! She was very discreet at the beginning of the process, but now she is the absolute master of the project and I feel that she will bring it to a successful conclusion. And what pleases me most is that she knows how to read music. She is able to say to the singers ‘here, at bar no. such and such, on the D major chord, you should do this…’. Wow! How many directors can do that in opera? What it also means is that she understands my intentions, and the singers feel confident because she speaks their language. Honestly, it’s great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pan M 360: How well did you know Marguerite Yourcenar before you started writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c9ric Champagne:<\/strong> I knew M\u00e9moires d’Hadrien<\/em> quite well, which I had read several times. It’s one of my favorite books. But when it came to her personal biography, with the exception of the main points such as her entry into the Acad\u00e9mie fran\u00e7aise as the first woman accepted, I knew almost nothing. Obviously, the project forced me to delve into her intimate world and her personal dramas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pan M 360: Were you touched by any specific points?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c9ric Champagne:<\/strong> Yes, I found great resonance with some of my own concerns, that is, the difficulty of reconciling creative and sentimental life. For her, it was a daily struggle, rarely won. She either immersed herself in her creation and neglected her love life, or on the contrary, she tried to nourish her love life but her work suffered. I also find this reconciliation difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pan M 360: What do you think was wrong? Why couldn’t she do it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c9ric Champagne: <\/strong>As we sometimes say, she wanted it all. When she had a creative impulse, she plunged into it completely, without half measures, at the risk of major collateral damage. She lived life to the full, always in extremes, unable to sit somewhere in the middle and balance things out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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