Seule au milieu de nous

G.Bizet The Pearl Fishers Pt4 A1 Léopold Simoneau "A cette voix...Je crois entendre encore"

Georges Bizet Les pêcheurs de perles Act One
Act One
Scène et Choeur "Seule au milieu de nous" cont'd
Récit "A cette voix"
Romance "Je crois entendre encore"
Nadir--Léopold Simoneau

an operbathosa avideo

Role : Nadir, a fisherman
Voice Part : tenor
Fach : lyric tenor
Range : F3 to B5.
Tessitura : A4 to G4

Georges Bizet Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) 1953
Leila--Pierrette Alarie
Nadir--Léopold Simoneau
Zurga--René Bianco
Nourabad--Xavier Depraz
Elisabeth Brasseur
Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux/Jean Fournet 1953

Part2
Léopold Simoneau (Tenor)

Born: May 3, 1916 - St.Plavien, near Quebéc, Canada
Died: August 14, 2006 - Victoria, BC, Canada

Léopold Simoneau was appointed deputy head of the music division of Quebecs Ministry of Cultural Affairs, a position which led directly to the creation of lOpéra du Québec in 1971. That same year he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was also made an Officer of the Ordre des arts et des lettres de France in 1990.

A profile in the International Dictionary of Opera sums up the voice of Léopold Simoneau, claiming he was the Mozart tenor of his generation. To celebrate the 1956 bicentennial of Mozarts birth, Simoneau made several records with some of the worlds outstanding conductors including Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir John Pritchard, Herbert von Karajan, and Bruno Walter, who universally praised his consummate musicianship, silvery tone, faultless technique and heartfelt projection of the inner drama of the Mozart roles.

Over a 30-year professional career, Léoppold Simoneau performed on stages worldwide with such other world-famous conductors as Busch, Otto Klemperer, Krips, and Georg Solti, and sang, in the opinion of one critic, more beautifully than any tenor since John McCormack.

Léoppold Simoneaus repertoire was not confined to Mozart. Eric McLean, a former music critic of the Montreal Star wrote that Simoneau sang a repertoire that ranged from Antonio Vivaldi to Verdi, Gluck to I. Stravinsky and Mozart to Offenbach. Many of his performances on stage, in concerts, and in recording studios were made with his Montréal-born wife, Pierrette Alarie. Together they sang such well-known couple roles as Romeo and Juliet, Vincent and Mireille, Tonio and Marie, Almaviva and Rosina, Alfredo and Violetta, and, most often, Belmonte and Blondchen.

The Simoneaus with their two daughters moved in 1972 to California where he taught voice at the conservatory and Pierrette Alarie became stage director of a number of small opera companies along the California coast. By 1978, the family had moved to Victoria, British Columbia, to join the Festival Concert Society summer music program, and there he and Pierrette Alarie established the Canada Opera Piccola that was soon recognized as one of the most successful centres for advanced training in opera. Cutbacks in government support, however, forced the project to close after the 1988 season, and the Simoneaus, who once had an article about them titled Their Lives Blend as Happily as their Voices, now live relatively quiet lives on Vancouver Island.