“I do shows in my life, but this one is very dear to my heart,” says Kathleen Fortin on the phone, who we saw in Unité 9, Demain matin, Montréal awaits me and Sisters-in-law (the musical).
The singer and actress recounts having attended the first version of the opera Nelligan by André Gagnon in the 1990s, a work from which spectators will hear certain excerpts. “I was 16 or 17 and I was singing The Golden Ship a cappella all over the place at parties. These are texts, melodies that have lived with me since that age. It lives in my entire body. »
She obviously did not know at that time that she would be invited by the composer himself to play the poet’s mother in concert with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 2005, a role that she would later be called upon to reprise. .
The 4 Seasons of André Gagnon, a tribute show produced three years before the composer’s death at age 84, has already toured Quebec in a “chambrist” version (vocals, piano, violin, cello, double bass and drums). The symphonic version, however, was only heard once, at the Concerts populaire de Montréal in the summer of 2019.
“We had a lot of fun,” remembers the actress and singer. The public was delighted. It’s like organic, it’s like visceral, the public’s love for André Gagnon. We have it tattooed into our collective unconscious. »
“We forget how his music is an integral part of our lives. He wrote so much stuff! We hear plays and we go: “Ah, my God, he wrote that!” The show takes us back to our memories of the last 50 years. »
Pianist Stéphane Aubin is no stranger to this success, having been at the helm of the show since 2017 as arranger and musical director. “Stéphane’s arrangements are truly sumptuous, I’m always overwhelmed to hear that at each rehearsal. André had a lot of admiration and respect for his work,” says Kathleen Fortin.
The orchestra of 24 musicians will perform, with or without the singer, hits like Wow, Neige and the Petit concerto for Jean Carignan, without forgetting several extracts from the opera Nelligan.
Kathleen Fortin is full of praise for the words of the famous French-Canadian poet. “Nelligan, when he describes the color, the smells, the sounds, we see Montreal, we see Gaspésie. Sounds like us! »