Notre libre arbitre consiste seulement en ce que nous pouvons faire une chose, ou ne la faire pas (c’est-à-dire affirmer ou nier, poursuivre ou fuir), ou plutôt seulement en ce que, pour affirmer ou nier, poursuivre ou fuir les choses que l’entendement nous propose, nous agissons en telle sorte que nous ne sentons point qu’aucune force extérieure nous y contraigne.
Méditations sur la philosophie première, René Descartes, 1641
(“Our free will consists only in the fact that in affirming or denying, pursuing or avoiding the things suggested by the understanding, we behave in such a way that we do not feel any external force has constrained us in our decision.”)
Meditations on First Philosophy, Laurence J. Lafleur trans., The Library of Liberal Arts Press, 1960
Christina Alexandra Vasa, Queen of Sweden at the age of six, uncomfortably installed on her throne at 18, sowed controversy and discord wherever her much vaunted free will directed her, blithely ignoring convention, shaking the crumbling post-Renaissance order to its archaic foundations the length and breadth of 17th century Europe. A champion of early Enlightenment ideals of science and rationalism, intensely resistant to genderized expectations of identity throughout her life, Queen Christina, champion of humanism, convert to Catholicism, standard-bearer for peace and love, warrior-born and bred, consistently confounded, enraged, fascinated. A brilliant, mercurial monarch like no other — restless, visionary, ferociously independent.
Mining a highly productive vein of biographical detail to extract compelling story, composer Julien Bilodeau and librettist Michel Marc Bouchard burrow deep into the multi-layered psycho-social-sexual strata of Christina’s life and times with their rich, new to Toronto landmark sensation, La Reine-garçon.
Premiered midwinter 2024 by Opéra de Montréal, co-commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company — the first mainstage collaboration featuring the two principal domestic producers of classical music theatre — practiced creatives Bilodeau and Bouchard stun and dazzle, conjuring an icy, crystal sharp world of passion and intrigue, emotion and violence. Queen Christina/Christine rules, a hero witnessed, often simultaneously, in both intimate detail and sweeping dimension, tender and forceful, fallible and iconic. A monument to paradox.
History is everything here. Set during the time of the Thirty Years War, a murderous Continental clash between Catholic and Protestant powerbrokers — opposing religious values little more than thinly veiled pretexts for ravenous territorial expansion — La Reine-garçon traces, in taut, clipped anecdotal form, Christine’s progression from wild child-woman to mature disenchantment. Vignettes drip emotion and atmosphere, story and insight gradually unlocked like melting icicles.
The opening scene: a spectacularly snowy winter’s wood courtesy projection designer Alexandre Desjardins. A gathering of hunters. A dashing black-caped, fur-hatted Queen Christine deprived of her father — King Gustavus Adolphus — by battle enters, more in pursuit of lost self than fleeing reindeer. The shrill shriek of Kulning, the eerie timeless spirit of Norseness, given towering off-stage voice by Anne-Marie Beaudette, ringing windblown tree to tree, leaves us in no doubt as to Christine’s proximity to her passions. We will hear the cry many more times during the evening.
Qu’est-ce que l’amour?… Comment s’en débarrasser? The Queen must know. The great French philosopher, René Descartes, a man fanatically committed to understanding all aspects of phenomena, mortal in particular, is summoned to Christine’s court, appearing centre stage in an extraordinarily gripping clinical tableau, set design by Anick La Bissonnière, stage direction by Angela Konrad. Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp of 1632 is graphically evoked. Messieurs, je vous présente, le cerveau!, Descartes exclaims, cadaver outstretched before him, the soul, source of all desire, neatly encased, per Cartesian claim, in the brain’s subcortical pineal gland. Clearly Christine is not to be freed of the all-consuming pain and pleasure of her infatuation with the beautiful Countess Ebba Sparre with simple bloodless ease.
Libérez-moi, she later pleads to the starry night sky, alone with her thoughts as her troubled saga draws to a close. Les larmes de ciel continue to blaze, indifferent to her prayer.
Musically, La Reine-garçon is something of a sonic pot-pourri, Richard Strauss meets Benjamin Britten meets John Cage, great rolling waves of swelling minor and major tonalities intersected, even interrupted by, if not always gentler, then notably more elemental harmonic structures, the totality of expression startlingly punctuated at times by unexpectedly spontaneous found instrumentation — tuned waterglass harp and everyday whistle of special note. Much like the opera’s central character, Bilodeau delights in defying expectation. The results are as rewarding as they are insistent, his sprawling score nowhere more stirring or beautiful than in its stark evocation of Queen Christine’s cherished frozen homeland. Mon pays, she proudly declares. A tip of the creative cap, perhaps, to legendary Québécois singer-songwriter Gilles Vigneault’s totemic anthem.
Appearing as the conflicted young Queen, engaging Montreal-based singer-actor Kirsten MacKinnon instantly commands attention, her strong, vibrant soprano with its infinitely flexible reach ideally suited to Bilodeau’s hilly harmonies and variable dynamics, slipping from assertive forte to more lyrical mezza voce with an abundance of effortless style and grace.
Tenor Isaiah Bell is the frighteningly unpredictable Count Johan Oxenstierna, a source of some considerable bizarre humour in his first appearance. Clic-Clac!, an odd haphazard sort of aria built on onomatopoeia, the sound of his boot heels on the polished palace floor triggering an outburst of manic self-obsession, is rendered in all its cringe-worthy physicality by Bell with obvious glee.
Bass-baritone Philippe Sly appears as Count Karl Gustav, Christine’s cousin and king to be, the free-thinking young queen, assaulted on all sides by disapproving courtiers and commoners alike, abdicating in his favour. Dites-moi ce que c’est comme d’être rejeté?, murmurs Sly’s moody nobleman in the final act, Gustav’s vulnerability shining through his dark, hard-edged masculinity, a gesture of reconciliation, a renunciation of the resentment and vicious animus that he once bore towards the Queen sung with simple heartfelt tone.
Fellow bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch sings Councillor Axel Oxenstierna, father to Johan, a rumbly, resonant presence, courtly and collected and supremely treacherous. Tenor Owen McCausland is a suitably animated René Descartes, an irrepressible showman on the Anatomy Theatre stage, Bilodeau’s music pulsing with left brain precision, McCausland’s quasi melodramatic phrasing assuming appropriately ironic proportions. Soprano Aline Kutan is the daunting, half-mad ancient Dowager Queen, Marie-Éléonore de Brandebourg, Kutan repeatedly progressing across the stage, twin walking sticks angrily stabbing the ground, her formidable ex-monarch wrapped in perpetual rage. Mezzo-soprano Queen Hezumuryango sings a charming Countess Ebba, Christine’s blameless compagnon de lit.
The men and women of the Canadian Opera Company Chorus lend a distinct air of societal populism to the proceedings, the upraised voices of subjects, servants, onlookers in general, grounding La Reine-garçon in blunt reality, nowhere perceived more bitterly or with more Lutheran contempt than in the people’s shared reaction to their queen’s acceptance of Papal meddling in her personal life. The collective explosion of fury on stage is positively volcanic.
Resident COC Music Director Johannes Debus conducts, leading a surging, tirelessly spirited Canadian Opera Company Orchestra with great intelligence and flair.
Glowing artistry. Powerful production values. La Reine-garçon deeply impresses.
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Kirsten LeBlanc sings the title role of Queen Christine, Feb. 7