Recitals | European Tour, 2015

 

Palazzetto Bru Zane (Venice), Accademia Santa Cecilia (Rome), Wiener Konzerthaus (Vienna), Opernhaus Zurich, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels), Wigmore Hall (London), February & March 2015

Tour with Roger Vignoles (piano)

 

Recitals – European tour

 

Tour with Roger Vignoles

Palazzetto Bru Zane (Venice), Accademia Santa Cecilia (Rome), Wiener Konzerthaus (Vienna), Opernhaus Zurich, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels), Wigmore Hall (London), February & March 2015

 

L’ora della Mélodie | Francesco Bertini | L’Ape Musicale, February 22, 2015

Palazzetto Bru-Zane (Venice), February 16, 2015

A ridosso dei festeggiamenti che chiudono il frizzante Carnevale veneziano, si tiene un altro interessante evento della rassegna organizzata dal Palazzetto Bru Zane. Questa volta la serata si svolge nella sede del Centre de musique romantique française dove stucchi e affreschi fanno da cornice all’esibizione di Marie-Nicole Lemieux, contralto, e Roger Vignoles, pianoforte. Il programma è interamente dedicato alla mélodie, genere assai in voga durante l’Ottocento, che ha come punti di forza tanto la raffinata scrittura, quanto l’efficacia poetica dei testi, concepiti da alcuni degli autori più apprezzati. (…) Le caratteristiche precipue della mélodie vengono abilmente sottolineate dalla duttilità vocale della Lemieux. Il contralto canadese infonde calore e vita alla propria interpretazione: l’emozione che traspare in ogni verso intonato conquista lo spettatore per la verità del fraseggio, il candore del sentimento trasmesso e la duttilità di uno strumento a proprio agio soprattutto nella tessitura acuta. La stessa mimica facciale esprime ciò che il testo lascia trapelare, a volte anche non apertamente, dando il polso dell’estrema sensibilità e personalità dell’artista. Benché Vignoles possa apparire distaccato, il suo accompagnamento pianistico si mette perfettamente al servizio degli intenti interpretativi della cantante. Egli crea un tappeto sonoro delicato e preciso, mai invadente. I grandi consensi finali spingono una spigliata e divertita Lemieux a concedere ben tre bis: la commovente À Chloris di Reynaldo Hanh, Villanelle, la prima delle sei mélodies tratte da Les nuits d’été di Hector Berlioz, e, come omaggio al nostro paese, la versione italiana della delicata L’heure exquise. I tripudianti consensi finali emozionano l’esecutrice la quale si concede felicemente alle dimostrazioni d’affetto del pubblico.


Alessandro Cammarano | OperaClick

Palazzetto Bru-Zane (Venice), February 16, 2015

(…) Il contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux e Roger Vignoles al pianoforte sono protagonisti di un voyage interieur nel quale conducono l’ascoltatore nei meandri ammaliatori della mélodie. Il programma è articolato con intelligenza e sensibilità, partendo dalla malinconia un po’ ingenua di Guillaume Lekeu, passando per l’eleganza affabulante di Reynaldo Hahn, giungendo alla disperazione mascherata da gioia di Ernest Chausson, per concludere con la metafisicità di Debussy e lo spleen di Duparc.
(…) La Lemieux, straordinaria cesellatrice, rende ogni singola sillaba con partecipe intelligenza e, soprattutto, con un coinvolgimento emotivo che rende vivido il testo poetico; ciascuna frase è non solo cantata, ma interpretata anche fisicamente, attraverso sguardi, espressioni, piccoli movimenti. Tutto è spontaneo, ogni accento suggerisce intimità ed interiorità.
La voce, potente e corposa nell’ottava grave, trova una leggerezza tornita nei centri e sale sicura in acuto.
Roger Vignoles, in perfetta sintonia con la Lemieux, suona con intelligenza e gusto, prediligendo, com’e giusto, l’introspezione all’esibizione. Il tocco è quasi rarefatto, la sordina appena sfiorata, il legato beneficia di una leggerezza liquida.
Pubblico rapito e partecipe, successo pieno e meritato per i due interpreti, tre bis concessi con grande simpatia dalla Lemieux tra i quali Á Chloris e la versione ritmica italiana de L’heure exquise.


Michelangelo Pecoraro | OperaClick

Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Roma), February 18, 2015

Marie-Nicole Lemieux sale sul palco piccolo della Sala Sinopoli, assieme al pianista Roger Vignoles, e «Toute les blancheurs de la chair / Y passent, radieux cortège» (“Tutti i biancori della carne / passano, radiosa processione”), come canterà poco dopo. L’espressione allegra, lo sguardo concentrato, il pallore lunare della pelle che contrasta, barocco, con i capelli rosso fuoco; il contralto canadese sprizza energia e carisma da tutti i pori. Energia che poi verrà infusa in ogni brano, attraverso la varietas delle emozioni musicali e testuali: dalla spensierata leggerezza di Mandoline al languore ipnotico di En Sourdine, le due mélodies iniziali dell’insieme Cinq mélodies de Venise op. 58 di Gabriel Fauré.
Nella mélodie il testo è importante: ecco perché la dizione scolpita e l’eccellente fraseggio della Lemieux ne fanno una delle interpreti più desiderabili, al giorno d’oggi, per un simile repertorio. (…)
Unione sensuale, malinconica, spumeggiante di testo e musica, di voce e pianoforte. Eh sì, perché definire “accompagnamento” la scrittura pianistica di queste mélodies vorrebbe dire non averne compreso lo spirito; tanto più in questo caso, dato che l’interazione tra i due artisti sul palco raggiunge un livello di vera e propria simbiosi. Roger Vignoles, e qui cito ancora la precedente recensione di Cammarano, “suona con intelligenza e gusto, prediligendo, com’è giusto, l’introspezione all’esibizione”. Le code sospese lasciano pendere i presenti dalle sue mani e legano benissimo la fine di un brano con l’inizio del successivo. I silenzi vengono colmati dagli sguardi e dai sorrisi di Vignoles e della Lemieux.
Dopo Fauré, è il turno di Guillaume Lekeu, autore di musica e testi, con la bellissima Sur une tombe. Peccato che i presenti a godere lo splendore di versi come «Tu reposes, tu reposes, pure, inoubliable Amie / En ton immortelle pâleur» non fossero di più: la Lemieux penetra i sensi con un’indicibile, dolce tristezza, portandoli con sé alla catarsi dell’ultimo verso («Notre Amour éternel!»), su uno splendido pianissimo. (…)
Nemmeno il tempo di riprendersi dall’emozione, ed ecco le prime, madreperlacee note de L’heure exquise che cominciano a diffondersi nella sala. Lo scarso pubblico, prima di concedere qualche minuto di sosta agli artisti, li remunera con un lungo e caloroso applauso.
(…) Giunge a questo punto l’ora di Claude Debussy, e dopo Lés Ingénus e Le Faune ecco il componimento che rivela in tutta la sua grandezza la Lemieux interprete: Colloque sentimental . Il testo di Verlaine presenta tre voci: quella di un narratore che racconta la passeggiata di “due forme”, e quelle dei “due spettri” che parlano dei sentimenti passati in un serrato botta e risposta. La Lemieux canta tutte e tre le voci, senza rovinare la linea canora, senza ricorrere a effettacci di cattivo gusto, solo con la forza dell’interpretazione, del fraseggio, degli accenti e di quegli “sguardi, espressioni e piccoli movimenti” di cui parlavamo all’inizio. Magistrale esecuzione e giustamente applauditissima.
(…) Alla fine, dopo i molti “Bravi!” che hanno salutato i due, Vignoles e Lemieux concedono ben tre bis al pubblico. Ancora Hahn con l’idilliaca À Chloris, salutata con gioia dagli appassionati; poi, da Les nuits d’été di Hector Berlioz, la famosa Villanelle, cantata e ballata con movenze da allegra contadinotta; infine, non avendo preparato altro ma visti gli incessanti applausi, nuovamente L’Heure Exquise di Hahn con bacio finale.


John-Pierre Joyce | Music OMH, March 1st  2015

Wigmore Hall (London), February 27, 2015

French-Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux has been doing the rounds of concert halls and opera houses for well over a decade now, yet she has only recently begun to emerge as a soloist in her own right. This recital gave an insight into the particular qualities of her voice in a programme of French melodiés from the belle époque.
Her contralto is light and agile, with a range that extends comfortably into the upper reaches of the register. Her well-chosen programme began with Fauré’s Cinq melodies ‘de Venise’, completed in 1891. Like so many melodiés of the period, these are settings of poems by Verlaine. In ‘Mandoline’, Lemieux flickered delicately through the score (singing from memory), before darkening the mood with her warm lower register in ‘Green’. Verlaine himself apparently didn’t think much of Fauré’s settings of his verse. He much preferred those of Reynaldo Hahn, and it was interesting to compare Hahn’s versions of these two songs (respectively re-titled ‘Fêtes galantes’ and ‘Offrande’). Lemieux (…) painted a masterly picture of languid desire in ‘Offrande’. Touching interpretations, too, of three songs by the brilliant but short-lived Guillaume Lekeu, and of Hahn’s ‘D’une prison’ – a spare and anguished expression of Verlaine’s feelings during his imprisonment for shooting Rimbaud in Brussels in 1873.
In the second part of the concert, Lemieux focused on delineating the distinct styles of Koechlin, Debussy and Duparc. (…) Lemieux hinted at troubled undercurrents in the outwardly carefree ‘Les ingénus’, while injecting ‘Colloque sentimentale’ with tangible regret and bitterness. She was completely in command of the final set of Duparc songs, including the celebrated ‘L’invitation au voyage’, which was particularly pleasing to hear sung in perfect, natural French.
Of course Lemieux wasn’t alone in communicating the music so well. Roger Vignoles is a seasoned accompanist but also a highly regarded interpreter of the French repertoire. His handling of the often complex piano parts was deeply reflective and personal, but never at the risk of overshadowing or tying down Lemieux’ voice.


Peter Reed | Classical Source

Wigmore Hall (London), February 27, 2015

Over the past fifteen years in concert and in opera, the Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux has notched up some brilliant Handel and Vivaldi roles, is a marvellous and very funny Mistress Quickly, and I clearly recall how she broadened and transformed the role of Geneviève in a concert performance of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.
Her contralto is about as far removed from the reassuring and matronly English idiom as it’s possible to be. First of all, her voice is wonderfully agile, with satisfying amplitude sustaining her soft singing. And she deployed some powerful fortissimos to telling effect, and the dip into her low register leads you into another area of subtlety and colour, their evenness and clarity defining the character of her voice as a whole.
In ‘Mandoline’, the first of the Fauré’s Cinq mélodies, she quickly asserted its flirtatious delicacy, and she elevated ‘Nocturne’ with skillfully veiled tone. She made a virtue of the restricted range of Hahn’s ‘Offrande’, using it to heighten the song’s tremulous expectation.
In the second half, she characterised each composer more distinctly, draping the fragile pastiche of Koechlin’s ‘Minuet’ with restrained tenderness and finding an eloquent monotony for ‘L’hiver’. Debussy’s ‘Colloque sentimentale’ became a masterpiece of lovers’ regret and bitterness, their bleak exchanges all the more potent in their reticence, and she was in complete control of the visionary splendours of the Duparc set. The projection of everything she sang was given additional intelligence by her easy diction – French is her natural language – and she has the knack of inflecting every nuance with emotion.
Lemieux is a complete artist, with an enviable ability to animate a song and the audience through her warm, communicative stage presence(…) With Roger Vignoles as her pianist, it was hardly surprising that their combined art concealed the art of this reclusive repertoire. Their encores, Hahn’s ‘A Chloris’ and Berlioz’s ‘Villanelle’ from Les Nuits d’été, clinched a distinguished recital.


Marie-Nicole Lemieux en récital à Londres : luxe, calme et volupté | Luce Zurita | Bachtrack, February 28, 2015

Wigmore Hall (London), February 27, 2015

Pour le récital de Marie-Nicole Lemieux, le Wigmore Hall avait des allures de music-hall parisien ; en vedette éclairée au halo, la contralto canadienne a remonté la tradition des plus grands interprètes de la chanson française avec un florilège de mélodies de la Belle Époque, de Fauré à Debussy, en passant par les fleurons moins connus du genre, Guillaume Lekeu, Charles Koechlin et Reynaldo Hahn. Dans un salon où se côtoient aussi les grands poètes de la langue française, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, en hôtesse des lieux chaleureuse, nous présente à cette belle société. Dès les Mélodies de Venise, le premier grand cycle de Fauré dédié à la princesse de Polignac, nous entrons en profonde empathie avec la chanteuse dont la concentration recueillie et le regard bouleversé évoquent la douleur d’un amour impossible. Si le tempo de la Mandoline est grisant, il y a comme un soupir derrière le sourire, un bleu au cœur qui ne cessera de grandir. Chaque miniature apporte son frisson, tantôt de plaisir, tantôt de détresse, et nous voguons d’un état d’âme à un autre sans que jamais le charme ne se rompe.
On aurait pu s’effrayer de ce piano grand ouvert, surtout dans un univers aussi intime et délicat, et pourtant plus l’on avance et moins l’on regrette cette niche béante ; il ne faut pas d’autre réceptacle à la voix puissante de Marie-Nicole Lemieux dont le lyrisme a pu percer avec un éclat libérateur. (…) Le jeu de Roger Vignoles, limpide et articulé, se fait le parfait miroir de sa partenaire, l’écrin d’un joyau vocal.
Car Marie-Nicole Lemieux a la science de l’émotion. Une interprète hors pair, elle ressent le texte avant de le chanter, lui donne ensuite un timbre dense et charnu, expressif et souple, d’un soutien sans faille. Sa diction trahit un amour du verbe français ; elle habite chaque syllabe, prolonge sensiblement chaque poème en épuisant toutes les ressources de sa clausule, à laquelle elle fait souvent faire de fulgurants tours du monde. En conséquence, la respiration est abondante et sonore, et devient indispensable au voyage ; elle gonfle nos poumons du même oxygène et nous fait ainsi vivre ensemble à la musique, en communion.
Les mélodies de Reynaldo Hahn bercent sans jamais endormir ; presque trop allant, le tempo choisi est fluide et permet à la chanteuse de frôler l’incandescence sur un piano d’une extrême douceur. L’heure est exquise. Auparavant, nous découvrons les Trois Poèmes dont Lekeu a aussi composé les vers ; il y a quelque chose du Spectre de la rose dans le premier numéro, et notre cœur saigne sur la tombe. La ligne vocale est d’une tension toute meurtrie. Mais jamais atteinte par le mutisme de la douleur, la chanteuse est aussitôt plus opératique, libre et insouciante, et son ivresse fait sourire. Les mélodies de Koechlin sont également une mosaïque d’émotions diverses ; du funèbre du Menuet à la bonhomie de la Pêche, Marie-Nicole Lemieux se délecte des ressources musicales du texte.
Les Fêtes galantes de Debussy et les mélodies de Duparc portent le voyage à destination. La désolation du Colloque sentimental nous semble insondable, la voix de la chanteuse se dédoublant pour nous faire entendre un couple désuni. Elle va pour cela chercher dans l’extrême grave de son registre d’incroyables notes pâlies par l’amertume. Et c’est comme étranglée par le chagrin qu’elle poursuit dans la nostalgie de L’Invitation au voyage, puis dans les clairs nuages de la Sérénade florentine. Nous languissons avec une distance pudique, jusqu’à ce rappel, vif et mordant, où la contralto forte d’un récital tenu avec maestria chante une Villanelle des Nuits d’été les plus spirituelles jamais entendues.
« Si l’artiste en trouvant ses idées n’a pas senti passer dans son cœur et sur sa chair le frisson de l’émotion, il ne sera jamais émouvant ». Que Duparc n’était à Londres hier soir… Il y aurait ri et pleuré, aimé et souffert. Car la générosité rare et la personnalité solaire de la contralto ont guidé l’âme d’un public galvanisé, et ce dans un univers qui forçait une voix puissante au défi de la retenue et de la fragilité. Avec une telle beauté de réalisation, nul doute, c’est bien une artiste qui s’est exprimée, une artiste qui a frissonné et ému à son tour.


Claire Seymour | Opera Today, March 2 2015

Wigmore Hall (London), February 27, 2015

(…) The gratifying lyricism of Fauré’s Cinq melodies ‘de Venise’ made an engaging opening, and allowed Lemieux to demonstrate her secure technique, the extraordinary range of her tonal palette and the wide compass of her voice, which she can extend down to a full contralto and up to blooming mezzo heights, passing through the registers smoothly and evenly. A native of Québec, Lemieux’s diction was, unsurprisingly, idiomatic. But, Fauré’s settings often prioritise the musical line above the prosody, resulting in occasional misplaced accents and emphasis, and Lemieux was skilful in highlighting textual details and drawing the listener into the song.
(…) ‘En sourdine’ (Muted) was more dreamy, Vignoles’ wave-like arpeggios and Lemieux’s dark tone conjuring the hazy headiness of the calm twilight. Lemieux’s superb control of dynamic extremes was demonstrated at the end of the song, her voice ringing passionately yet forebodingly as evening fell, but fading into sweet softness for the closing consolation, ‘Le rossignol chantera’ (the nightingale will sing). There were flashes of vocal power in ‘Green’, too, judiciously enriching the musical line, and particularly impressive was the way Vignoles used the semi-quaver movement in the inner voices both to colour the piano’s repeating quavers and engage with the voice.
A similar sense of unity was achieved at the opening of ‘C’est l’extase’ (It is rapture), the piano’s rising motif sparkling deliciously to conclude the singer’s slow opening line, ‘C’est l’extase langoureuse’ (It is languorous rapture). In this song, Lemieux moved fluently from high to low and back again, the voice even and lovely across the registers. (…) The sobriety of ‘Sur une tombe’ (On a tomb) was established by the quiet melancholy of the piano’s opening phrase and the gravity was sustained by the composure and precision — rhythmic, dynamic — of the expressive vocal line. The clouds and shadows were lifted by the clear textures of Vignoles’ insouciant introduction to ‘Ronde’ (The dance), and in this song Lemieux demonstrated the easy flexibility of her voice, most especially in the declamatory second stanza with its temporal ebbs, flows and elongations which mimic ‘Les murmures d’amour de ce beau soir d’été’ (love murmuring on this beautiful summer evening). At times she employed a full vibrato to intensify a note or phrase, most effectively in the final stanza, the voice shimmering glossily through the translucent moonlight painted by Vignoles high, crystalline line. In ‘Nocturne’ Lemieux’s vocal line unfolded sweetly and mellifluously above the piano’s busy accompaniment.
The suspended, rocking chords which open ‘Offrande’ (Offering) by Reynaldo Hahn transported us to a world far removed from Fauré’s ‘Green’, which sets the same Verlaine text (…). Lemieux’s melody was wonderfully focused and well-shaped, particularly in the final stanza, ‘Sur votre jeune sein laissez rouler ma tête’ (On your young breast let me cradle my head); and the delicacy of Vignoles’ placing of the oscillating chords, and of the low bass G which finally intimates resolution, was incredibly moving. ‘L’heure exquise’ (Exquisite hour) sparkled tremulously, with Lemieux once again injecting a dash of the moon’s precious gleam. (…)
(…) In ‘Menuet’ Vignoles’ understated pastiche dance seemed indifferent to the singer’s lamentations, until the final verse when Lemieux joined with the piano to dramatically exclaim her distress, ‘Ah! Comme vous broyez les coeurs’ (Ah! How you break hearts). The piano’s quiet ripples at the start of ‘Si tu le veux’ (If you so desire) created a propelling animation. And, Lemieux balanced tenderness and passion, conveying both the purity and sensuality of the poet-speaker’s desire, most seductively in the port de voix — a sweeping octave fall — which joins the image of the beloved, dishevelled by the wind, to the final line: ‘Si tu le veux, ô mon amour.’
(…) Lemieux made much of the text in ‘Les ingénus’, her low voice silky and enticing. The gradual deceleration was well controlled and the fading of the evening light in the third stanza was enigmatic and magical; (…) In ‘La faun’ Lemieux unleashed all the smoky mystery of her full contralto colour while Vignoles’ distant low fifths, oscillating rhythmically, conjured the mercurial faun’s laughter and twirling dance. ‘Colloque sentimental’ (Lovers’ dialogue) was profoundly moving and the performers assailed the interpretive challenges superbly. Lemieux’s melody was emotive and expressive above the sparse accompaniment, yet details were never exaggerated and the tone was even and controlled. Her breath-control and phrasing were excellent, the syllabic setting never interfering with the flow of the vocal line. Even at the bottom of her range, the singer’s voice spoke clearly and truly, and the three ‘voices’ in the text were clearly distinguished.
Four songs by Henri Duparc concluded the recital. (…) Most spell-binding of all was ‘La vie antérieure’ (A previous life). Lemieux’s tone was truly stunning in the solemn opening stanza, as Baudelaire’s poet-speaker describes his former life beneath vast colonnades that look in the evening light, like ‘grottes basaltiques’ (basalt caves). The poetic images were wonderfully captured in sound: hypnotic swaying cross-rhythms, driving forward, revealed ‘Les houles, en roulant les images de cieux’ (The sea-swells, mingling with the mirrored skies); grandiose and impassioned pounding quavers depicted ‘des esclave nus, tout imprégnés d’odeurs’ (naked slaves all drenched in perfume).
Reading these Parnassian poets, one might be tempted to concur with Fauré’s view that ‘their form, so elegant, pretty, and sonorous, resides entirely in the word — and because the word does not hide a single true thought … [the] verse is too full, too rich, too complete for music to be effectively adapted to it’. But, Lemieux and Vignoles made these settings endlessly fascinating and absorbing.


Claude Jottrand | Forum Opéra

Théâtre de la Monnaie (Brussels), March 2, 2015

Marie-Nicole Lemieux fait sensation dès son entrée sur la scène de la Monnaie. (…)
C’est un impressionnant programme qu’elle a réuni sous le titre L’heure exquise : outre des mélodies françaises de Fauré, Hahn et Koechlin bien en ligne avec l’intitulé, elle présente en deuxième partie des lieder de Schubert et Wolf, puis des mélodies de Rachmaninov, confrontant ainsi plusieurs esthétiques, plusieurs styles et plusieurs époques.
Sa voix est une pure merveille : chaude, sensuelle, parfaitement libre, généreuse, d’une grande homogénéité, elle affronte le piano grand ouvert sans jamais chercher la confrontation, domine avec aisance toutes les difficultés techniques et déploie une agréable palette de couleurs, qu’elle utilise intelligemment en rapport avec le texte. Son excellent contact avec le public, qu’elle défie d’un regard clair et volontiers gouailleur, lui assure l’attention bienveillante de chacun et instaure un climat décontracté, sans grand souci de formalisme, un peu inhabituel pour un récital de mélodies.
(…) A Chloris (Hahn), Villanelle (Berlioz) et An die Musik (Schubert) seront donnés successivement en bis, ce dernier avec une concentration et une sobriété idéales, presque miraculeuses(…).