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On Feb. 5, after two years and as many virtual occasions, the Prix Opus gala returned to the Salle Bourgie at Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts, attended by community contributors. The annual ceremony which recognizes excellence in music (and musicology) of the past year was emceed by the comedian Jocelyn Lebeau. For almost three hours, he most skilfully led the presentations and interviews with the 2023 award winners.
Musical presentations that are rarely heard punctuated the evening. First came some Bach pieces performed by the outstanding baroque ensemble Les Boréades de Montréal about passing through Quebec by canoe-kayak. Halfway through, mezzo-soprano Marie-Annick Béliveau, in stage costume, delivered a moving version of an excerpt of the opera Chants du Capricorne, created by Pauline Vaillancourt in 1995. The afternoon ended with festive gypsy jazz.
Also noteworthy was a showing of a pre-recorded video of Bruce Liu who, with impeccable French and a touch of humour, thanked the Conseil québécois de la musique for awarding him Performer of the Year and for international achievement.
Vaillancourt, the former artistic director and leading light of the contemporary opera company Chants Libres, was awarded a Prix hommage—a tribute to her entire career spent in the service of musical creation. After listing the key moments of Pauline Vaillancourt’s admirable journey, including prior to Chants Libres, Lebeau tried a bit of humour. “Is all that for real?” he asked her. Incomprehension among the audience members and a long lonely moment for the one who seemed to have no compunction in displaying his lack of knowledge of the musical scene.
Of all the accomplishments as head of Chants Libres, established in 1970, Vaillancourt noted the evocative force of Chants du Capricorne, echoing what musicologist Georges Nicholson said of the piece: “A magical power which brings us back to our roots—that which in each of us is the least explored: our primitive nature.”
Translation by Karine Poznanski
See the complete list of awards at https://prixopus.com
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