Louis Riel (opera)

Louis Riel
Opera by Harry Somers
The composer in 1947
Librettist	Mavor Moore Jacques Languirand
Language	English French
Premiere	September 23, 1967 (1967-09-23) O'Keefe Centre, Toronto

Louis Riel is a three-act

Performance history

Louis Riel had its first performances at the

The libretto depicts the post-Confederation political events bounded by the Indian and Métis uprisings of 1869–70 (Red River Rebellion) and 1884–5 (North-West Rebellion) and the personal tragedy of the leader of the uprisings, the Manitoba schoolteacher and Métis hero Louis Riel. After the premiere, Kenneth Winters described the opera in the Toronto Telegram (25 September 1967) as a 'pastiche ... big, efficient, exciting, heterogeneous ... It had no ring of eternity but it was a vigorous harnessing of current and choice; a brash, smart, cool hand on the pulse of a number of fashions, social, dramatic and musical.' The production was repeated in 1968 in Toronto—six performances with the assistance of the Chalmers Foundation—and was adapted by Franz Kraemer in 1969 for CBC TV.

In 1975 Louis Riel was revived by the

Using a broadcast tape from the 1975 US performance, Centrediscs produced a three-record set of the complete opera (CMC-24/25/2685-3), which was launched in November 1985 at the 'Image of Riel in Canadian Culture' conference in Guelph, Ontario. Feldbrill conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Turgeon and Roslak repeated their roles, and were joined by Donald Rutherford (John A. Macdonald), Jean-Pierre Hurteau (Bishop Taché), Diane Loeb (Riel's mother), Ann Cooper (his sister), Ronald Bermingham (McDougall), and Remo Marinucci (Lépine).

'Kuyas'—the lullaby sung in Act III by Riel's wife to their child—was used prior to the opera's premiere as the test piece for the Montreal International Competition in 1967. It was recorded in 1983 by Roslak on Centrediscs CMC-1183.

Louis Riel was not presented again until Opera McGill gave the first full staging in 30 years, at Place des Arts, 27–28 January 2005, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of McGill University's music program. Riel was played by Luc Lalonde, Macdonald by Michael Meraw, and Bishop Taché by John Taylor; François Racine was stage director and Alexis Hauser, music director. The revival won an Opus Award as event of the year.

To coincide with the 150th anniversary of the confederation of Canada, the Canadian, a production of Louis Riel by the

The 2017 cast includes Russell Braun as Riel, James Westman as John A. Macdonald, Alain Coulombe as Monseigneur Taché, Allyson McHardy as Riel's mother, Joanna Burt as Sara Riel, Simone Osbourne as Riel's wife, Doug MacNaughton as William McDougall, and Taras Chmil as Baptiste Lépine.^[4]

Roles

Roles at the 1967 premiere were:^[5]

References

External links

• Louis Riel at The Canadian Encyclopedia