Joachim Ulric Voyer


Joachim Ulric Voyer, was born on July 5, 1892 in Saint-Roch, Quebec City and died on January 8, 1935, at the age of 42, in the same city. He was a Canadian opera composer, whose opera L'Intendant Bigot, created in Montreal on February 5 and 7, 1929, is considered to be one of the first Canadian operas.

L'Intendant Bigot, Historic Canadian Opera

L'Intendant Bigot was created under the patronage of the Honorable Athanase David, provincial secretary, by the Société canadienne d'opérette established by Honoré Vaillancourt, his managing director and M. Albert Roberval, art director, who managed this opera with the cooperation of several members of this society. The opera premiered February 5, 1929 at the Monument national de Montréal " in front of a record attendance, " and repeated the next day with as much success. Three additional sold-out performances were mounted at the Auditorium de Québec: on the morning and evening of Saturday, March 23, and on Sunday, March 24, in the presence of numerous celebrities including Sir Lomer Gouin, Lieutenant governor and ex-Prime Minister of the province, and Madam Louis- Alexandre Taschereau, wife of the Prime Minister. The opera presented in Quebec was under the direction of Edmond-J. Trudel and the title role was entrusted to Arnold Becker of New York’s San Carlo Opera.
The opera L'Intendant Bigot evokes the years of oppression endured by the people under Governor Bigot, the last governor of New France, and his accomplices who were repatriated to France, where they were sentenced to stiff penalties for corruption and had their properties dispossessed. The opera makes a reference to " this period which extends from 1755 to 1760, when François Bigot, governor of the law, the police and finance had absolute power to increase his authoritarianism, to display his sumptuous taste as a big player and bon vivant, and, according to the appetites which he wanted to satisfy, to even turn to crime to denounce the darkest plots ".

Characters and Casting of The Opera L'Intendant Bigot

J.-U. Voyer and Alfred Rousseau's libretto, stages great names in history such as François Bigot, the last governor of New France and his mistress Madam Péan, Angélique Renaud d'Avène des Méloïses
" Can this work, writes J.-Ulric Voyer, if it communicates to the listener bitter regret at the sight of this innocent victim who had deserved to be happy with us always, he clearly understands, also, that France has not died a natural death, but they killed her, in spite of us. A finale without this innocent victim would have been easily found. But history is there, that a few days after this legend, was a beautiful and greatest victim. The separation was cruel, so cruel, that after 168 years, at the heart of all French-Canadians, there is still a bitter regret, a hope, an I remember... "

The Libretto

Here is a synopsis of each of the opera’s acts:
The first act is set in 1758, on the côte de Beaupré, at Bigot’s hunting lodge. He is in the company of the Marquis de St-Germain, to whom he owes a large sum. The Marquis agrees to erase this debt if Bigot succeeds in convincing Gemma to marry him. But Gemma loves Raymond, a young hunter, and refuses Bigot's request.

The second act sets the scene in the guest house of Dumas, the father of Gemma, where Bigot and the marquis try in vain to convince Gemma. By leaving, the marquis forgets a glove which Raymond finds and makes a fit of jealousy and parts from Gemma.

In the third act, a party is organized at Bigot's home, and Gemma is invited. Bigot hires 3 bandits to kidnap her and bring her by force to his house. During the kidnapping, Gemma is fatally injured and one of the arrested bandits reveals the plot. Furious, a crowd captures Bigot and crushes him under a bench.

Appreciation of the Work

The five performances of the opera L'Intendant Bigot were sold out, and were well received by the press and benefited from significant media coverage. Several artists stressed the qualities of the work, including Wilfrid Pelletier, conductor of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, who said to the author: "you possess a theatrical writing, and it is an extremely rare thing, not only in the United States, but in Europe nowadays". M. Honoré Vaillancourt, managing director of the Société canadienne d'opérette, considered the author to be " the first Canadian to produce a lyric work set on stage in the form of an opera ". Arnold Becker of New York's San Carlo Opera underlined that the author " possesses the so-called extramusical faculties, without which any composer, however capable he may be, even Schubert, would be incapable to make his plays triumph. " The work, however, raised in the pages of the magazine La Lyre in May 1929, much controversy initiated by recognized professional artists, forcing the editorial committee to intervene." On the occasion of the performance of " L'Intendant Bigot", there were deplorable debates, he wrote. Unfortunately, personal arguments, completely unrelated to the music, were presented. we have never said that M. Voyer, self-taught, produced a masterpiece, no more than we said that M. Voyer gave, in his score, trips to the rules of the musical prosody, he concludes ".

Musical Background

J.-Ulric Voyer was not a professional musician. He worked for 21 years, as an advertising agent for J.-B. Renaud and regretted not having been able to dedicate his life to music. He was artistic director of the radio station CHRC.
He studied at Wallace, studied the laws of musical composition with M. Lefrançois, organist of St-Roch, and studied the piano with M. Hudson. In Montreal, he studied the organ and harmony with Léon Dessane and Auguste Descarries.

1996: Rediscovery at the Institut canadien de Québec

Nineteen ninety six marks the rediscovery of the opera L'Intendant Bigot. At the Institut canadien de Québec, in front of 75 of the composer's descendants and friends, eleven extracts of the opera were performed by Bruno Laplante and France Duval, accompanied by Hélène Marceau on the piano. None of the spectators, with the exception of two of his children, had ever heard more than two excerpts of his work on 78. His own children were moved to hear these excerpts for the first time.

1998 : In The Context of the Fêtes de la Nouvelle-France

On August 7, 1998, at the Jardin des Gouverneurs in Old Quebec, in the shade of the Château Frontenac, 800 to 1000 people listen to a concert version of L'Intendant Bigot, including 8 of his living children, attending a performance for the first time. Organized as part of the Fêtes de la Nouvelle-France on the evenings of August 7 and 8, this event receives widespread attention. The cast includes twenty singers under the artistic and musical direction of Bruno Laplante.Accompanied by 25 musicians from the Quebec Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Gilles Auger, the main performers are Manuel Blais, baritone, Réginald Côté, a tenor, France Duval, a soprano, Benoît Gendron, a tenor, Bruno Laplante, baritone, Line Malenfant, soprano and Sébastien Ouellet, baritone. Despite the lack of sets, the performers were all dressed up, and the two evenings were successfully narrated by Jacques Boulanger.
Twenty members of the Société lyrique de la Nouvelle Beauce formed the chorus. France Duval, one of the main performers, believed the music to be in a classical style, requiring a good register. She claims not to know " of another example of an opera of this scale written by a Quebecois, the importance of the work exceeds its artistic value. It's a part of our cultural heritage ".
To mark the event with the descendants of the composer and some of the cast, a brunch was organized on Sunday, August 9 in Val-Bélair by Claire Voyer Allard, his youngest daughter.

Recordings and publications

In 1929, two excerpts of L'Intendant Bigot were recorded under the label Starr : " Romance du marquis " sung by C.E. Brodeur and " Dans un petit village " sung by Marie-Rose Descarries. " In less than two months, wrote the editorial staff of the magazine La Lyre, more than ONE THOUSAND copies of the single " Dans un petit village ", were sold, sung so sweetly by Miss Marie-Rose Descarries. After 26 years in the music business in Montreal, we believe that this is a sales record that has never been achieved by Canadian work, during this period ".
On October 30, 1929, at Steinway Hall, the soprano Audrie Rubanny, accompanied by the pianist Edgar Goodaire, integrates "Dans un petit village" to her recital which also included pieces by Debussy, Gabriel Fauré and Rupés.
In 1997, the single " Ô mon ami, veuille le dire encore " is recorded by the duo Laplante-Duval on the CD l'Opérette française. The same excerpt is incorporated into their recital and will be sung during their European tour to Paris, Vienna, Zagreb, Belgrade and Budapest as well as in Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela.
Besides the publication of the libretto of L'Intendant Bigot, nothing was ever published from this work by the author during his lifetime.
It was not until 2000 that the Nouveau théâtre musical publishes, in collaboration with the Société des amis d'Ulric Voyer, the L'Intendant Bigot score and arrangements for voice and piano. The Nouveau théâtre musical also published in 2007, a few vocal scores: « Ronde de l'Ours Noir » for bass voice and piano, « Quel sublime décor » for baritone and piano, « Dans un petit village » for soprano and piano and « Dans l'abandon, les noirs regrets » for tenor and piano.

Other Works

Voyer died unexpectedly at the young age of 42, when he was struck by pulmonary congestion. He was survived by his wife, Alice Bédard and fifteen children, the youngest being only nine months old.
On September 14, 2006, an epigraph, in memory of the composer, was affixed to the facade of the house he inhabited at 170 13th Street, in the Limoilou neighborhood of Quebec City.