FROM THE AWE-INSPIRING extravagance of Cirque du Soleil to the exuberant chest-thumps of power-ballad queen Celine Dion, Canada’s “belle province” certainly delivers when it comes to spectacle. And come next Saturday, Vancouver’s Orpheum will overflow with as much French Canadiana as a poutine from Chez Gaston when it hosts the Western Canadian premiere of the Montreal-born Riopelle Symphonique, featuring the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Vancouver Bach Choir under the baton of guest conductor Adam Johnson.
Billed as a “stunning multimedia odyssey”, the soaring work is a 100th-anniversary celebration of acclaimed Montreal-born abstract painter and artist Jean Paul Riopelle, presented by the Audain Foundation. Part choral work, part symphony, part art installation, part documentary, and even part fashion show, it’s an ambitious project that, says the Montreal-based Johnson, is “an amazing piece of music and an incredible journey.”
Originally conceived and produced by GSI Musique, in partnership with the Riopelle Foundation, Riopelle Symphonique burst onto stages in Montreal and Quebec City last year to effusive critical reception. To pull it together, Nicolas Lemieux, GSI Musique’s artistic director and CEO, tapped into the catalogue of songwriter (and former frontman for Quebec prog-rock band Harmonium) Serge Fiori, and commissioned Montreal classical composer Blair Thomson to integrate the songs into a 75-minute work for full symphony orchestra and choir. But wait, there’s more!
In close consultation with Riopelle’s daughter, Sylvie Riopelle, a selection of images of Riopelle’s artwork was compiled, along with snippets of the artist’s voice in between the piece’s five movements.
“To combine these huge musical forces with images that will be projected onto screens above the orchestra, where the audience will get to experience both the paintings and the sculptures that Riopelle did during these different phases of his life—it’s a very powerful experience for the audience,” says Johnson, who has been involved with the project since its inception. “It’s also powerful for me, as the conductor, to be the link in between all these different artforms, between the voices and the instruments and the visuals.”
Johnson insists the production is “designed to be accessible for everyone. One of the things that I think is fantastic about this project is that the music has some elements that are very contemporary. Each song from Serge Fiori is a very accessible type of beautiful pop song…but Blair, the way that he started each movement, he takes fragments of the songs and reworks them, and reorders them, and sort of decomposes them first, and then, gradually, kind of puts it all together. So that then, the song becomes recognizable towards the end of the movement.
“People who are interested in pop music love the show because it definitely has some very accessible elements and very tuneful, very consonant, beautiful music,” he continues. “But people who are also interested in a more avant-garde type of art, they also love this show because it has elements of that. And I think it introduces audiences who are maybe only used to the pop side to a different kind of art music…and vice versa.”
