Marie-Josee Lord
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Marie-Josee Lord

Montréal, Quebec, Canada | MAJOR

Montréal, Quebec, Canada | MAJOR
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"Marie-Josée Lord: a plentiful feast of music"

Marie-Josée Lord presented Bouillon (Broth), her mildly nonconformist recital, yesterday evening at the Agora Port de Québec. She was accompanied by Stéphane Aubin on piano and by Antoine Bareil on violin.

As the soprano herself said, the title of the concert may seem strange; but in fact one could not find a more appropriate label for the program that she presented, sang, and acted. Drawing inspiration from a West Indian recipe that calls for a little of everything all held together, in the end, by a single common ingredient, she chose to sing whatever she and her audience found pleasing, and all was held together by her voice.

She sang Bernstein, Catalani, Dvok, Ferland, Gershwin, Gounod, Lama, Plamondon, Vigneault, and Weill, and it all held together.

In approaching her entire repertoire with the same technique and the same voice, she sharply repudiates the current trend whereby “authentic” performance practices for every piece should be respected. She made each piece her own so well that, to take one example, Lama’s “Je suis malade” sounded for all the world like an aria and recitative from a grand French opera. Juxtaposed with “L'air des bijoux” from Gounod’s Faust, the illusion was perfect; one appreciated in both songs the same qualities of drama, mastery of voice, and diction.

Marie-Josée has the finesse to present her songs simply, elegantly and, above all, intelligently. Everything she said was not only amusing but also added one more element to her central claim about the interest and accessibility of opera, a complete total art. Her approach of infusing everything she sings with the operatic spirit turns out to be very effective, and what at first seemed to be just a simple, light recital turned out, in the end, to be a solidly constructed work of art.
- Le Soleil, August 30, 2010


Discography

Marie-Josee Lord and l'Orchestre Metropolitain
ATMA Classique 2010

Photos

Bio

Marie-Josée Lord
Soprano
Marie-Josée Lord made her professional debut in the Fall of 2003, singing Liù in Puccini’s Turandot at Opéra de Québec. In 2004, Montreal music lovers too were enraptured by her rendition of Mimi in Puccini’s La Bohème at Opéra de Montréal, where she also sang Laoula in Chabrier’s l'Étoile in 2005. Previously, Marie-Josée Lord held numerous roles, such as Fiordiligi in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte (in a Canadian tour with the Atelier Lyrique de l'Opéra de Montréal), the title role of Turandot (Busoni) and Dido in Dido and Aeneas (Purcell), with the Atelier Lyrique du Conservatoire de Musique de Québec. Ms. Lord has also been heard as Susanna in Il segreto di Susanna (Wolf-Ferrari), has studied Melisande, Musetta and Violetta and doubled for Nedda in I Pagliacci (Leoncavallo) in the Fall of 2002 at Opéra de Montréal.
In September 2006, Marie-Josée Lord sang the title role in Suor Angelica (Puccini) in the Opéra de Montréal's season opening production. Recently she has been heard as Marie-Jeanne in the world premiere of the operatic version of the celebrated musical Starmania (Plamondon/ Berger) at Opéra de Québec in May 2008 and Opéra de Montréal in March 2009. In the early Fall of 2009, Ms. Lord brilliantly held the role of Nedda (I Paggliacci) at Opéra de Montréal. She has also been featured on several shows broadcast by CBC Radio.
In 2005, Marie-Josée Lord was the recipient of the Prix d’Excellence de la Culture, awarded by the Fondation de l'Opéra de Québec, and was selected to represent Canada at the Cardiff Singer of World competition. She won the Public Prize at the Canadian Lyric Fund Competition, she came in sixth position at the famous Verviers International Singing Competition in 2001