With its 12th edition, the Festival d’opéra de Québec will bring you the sweetness of a summer night, the beauty of a nightingale’s song and the subtle thrill of love!

With this Festival, Jean-François Lapointe wants to reach out to people, to help them discover the history of opera in Quebec City, to offer productions of exceptional quality, and to pursue his mission of promoting opera in French. Thus, all the works on the program for this 12th edition are once again works in French.

Enhanced free outdoor activities

The Opera Circuit, which presents the history of opera in Quebec City and offers short performances, will be expanded from five to seven stations. Also on the free outdoor activity front, the Opera Brigade and the Operetta Brigade will present for the first time complete one-act works with costumes and staging. Thanks to the support of Première Ovation, the public will have the opportunity to discover young Quebec City talent to interpret the various roles in Menotti’s Telephone and Offenbach’s Pomme d’Api. The staging of these short works is entrusted to the young director Félix Tremblay-Therrien, who will bring the necessary freshness to the works.

Various locations in Quebec City, daily from 12:00 to 17:00

World premiere – an opera adapted from a play by Michel Tremblay

Festival-goers will be the first in the world to witness the birth of Christian Thomas‘ opera, adapted from Michel Tremblay‘s Messe solennelle pour une pleine lune d’été (Solemn Mass for a Full Summer Moon), a production of the Festival d’opéra de Québec with the participation of Les Violons du Roy.

Messe solennelle… is one of Michel Tremblay’s least known plays. However, the fate of these characters, who speak from their balconies while admiring the warm August moon, is an accurate portrayal of love and lovelessness. The full moon becomes a revelation of deep thoughts, of things we keep silent, of the lucidity of suffering. Raoul-Jobin Hall with its marvelous Casavant organ and balconies is the ideal setting for this dramatic liturgy. The all-Quebec cast is directed by Alain Zouvi with set design by Jean Bard.

Palais Montcalm, Raoul-Jobin Hall, July 29 at 2 p.m., July 31 and August 2, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.

Romeo and Juliet : the freshness of a summer night wrapped in passions and absolute love

Since he took over as General and Artistic Director of the Opéra de Québec, Jean-François Lapointe has put on remarkable productions that combine the talents of local and international artists and artisans. Romeo and Juliet is a French opera in five acts by Charles Gounod, based on Shakespeare’s tragedy, which needs no introduction! The charming and talented tenor Thomas Bettinger as Romeo and Juliet will take on the voice and features of the young revelation Hélène Carpentier. The staging is entrusted to the astonishing Pierre-Emmanuel Rousseau and the musical direction to the excellent conductor and specialist of French opera, Laurent Campellone. This is without a doubt a must-see event of the classical summer in Quebec.

Grand Théâtre de Québec, Salle Louis-Fréchette, July 28 at 7:30 p.m., July 30 at 2 p.m. and August 1 at 7:30 p.m.

The daughter without a regiment

Once again, the Quebec City Opera Festival’s association with JM Canada gives young opera artists a showcase for their talent and offers a refreshing reading of Donizetti’s compelling work, La Fille du régiment, which features ordinary characters where joy, emotion and events are expressed in music that is sometimes military, sometimes lyrical and at times made up of popular melodies.

Théâtre de La Bordée, July 26, 27 and 29 at 7:30 pm