The Conversation: star baritone Russell Braun and musical theatre dynamo Louise Pitre
The Conversation: star baritone Russell Braun and musical theatre dynamo Louise Pitre
The place: Aria Ristorante
The people: star baritone Russell Braun and musical theatre dynamo Louise Pitre
The subject: belting it out in different languages
Filling a room with the sound of your voice is hard enough—imagine having to do it in a second language. For an in-demand baritone like Russell Braun, delivering big emotions and big notes in another tongue is just part of the job. This month, Braun stars in the Canadian Opera Company’s French-language production of Kaija Saariaho’s lush and romantic Love From Afar. Louise Pitre is just as linguistically adept, having spent much of the past year touring North America singing tunes by Jacques Brel, Édith Piaf and Ira Gershwin (with room left for the odd number by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus). Now she’s unleashing her interpretive powers on her own work for a concert of original dramatic songs—in French and English—written in collaboration with her husband, actor Joe Matheson, and pianist Diane Leah. We brought these two polyglot singers together for a few glasses of wine and listened in.
Follow the conversation »
OPERA
Love From Afar
Feb. 2 to 22
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Love From Afar
Feb. 2 to 22
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
CONCERT
From the Inside Out: An Intimate Evening of Original Songs
Feb. 27
Lower Ossington Theatre
From the Inside Out: An Intimate Evening of Original Songs
Feb. 27
Lower Ossington Theatre
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- My mother tongue is German, but I grew up speaking French and English as well. I heard a great term on the radio this morning: “ambilingual.” We say a person is bilingual, which suggests a sort of separation. If you’re ambilingual, you can instantly express yourself in either language.
- The Conversation: Vocal Point
- The Conversation: Vocal Point
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- Friends tell me I’m more dramatic and emotional in French. I know I can be sadder singing Brel than I am singing nearly anything in English. It may be because it’s my mother tongue, so it comes from a deeper place.
- The Conversation: Vocal Point
- The Conversation: Vocal Point
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- The singing technique should come from the language, from how you support the consonants and how you make space for the vowels. A German T is so different from an Italian T. I hear a lot of singers who iron out all those edges because they just want to sound massive, so they make every language sound the same.<br /> <br /> I did <em>Les Miz</em> in French and English in Montreal. Same cast—five French shows a week, and three English. It’s much tougher to sing that show in French because of all those sounds that don’t project as much.
- The Conversation: Vocal Point
- The Conversation: Vocal Point
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- I don’t know how you maintain that kind of schedule. I turned down a role in <em>South Pacific</em> in New York because it would’ve meant doing eight shows a week. I feel so spoiled as an opera singer—I always get a few days between performances to rest my vocal cords.
- The Conversation: Vocal Point
- The Conversation: Vocal Point
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- And we hate you for that—we really do. I did <em>Sweeney Todd</em> with the Calgary Opera right after I left <em>Mamma Mia</em>, and I was in heaven. My goal is to interest someone like Josh Groban or Celine Dion in recording one of my songs. It would only take one hit, and then I could stay home and write instead of having to sing my guts out all the time.
- The Conversation: Vocal Point
- The Conversation: Vocal Point
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- The Conversation: Vocal Point
- The Conversation: Vocal Point
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. Now she’s unleashing her interpretive powers on her own work for a concert of original dramatic songs—in French and English—written in collaboration with her husband, actor Joe Matheson, and pianist Diane Leah. We brought these two polyglot singers together for a few glasses of wine and listened in.
Follow the conversation »
OPERA
Love From Afar
Feb. 2 to 22
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
CONCERT
From the Inside Out: An Intimate Evening of Original Songs
Feb. 27
Lower Ossington Theatre
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