Joachim Ulric Voyer

L'intendant Bigot – Program (Quebec 1929)

J.-U. Voyer and Alfred Rousseau's[10] 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 (nicknamed The Pompadour of Quebec,[11] wife of Michel Jean Hugues Péan, the governor's right-hand man as well as the Marquis Gaston of St-Germain.

The scene takes place in Quebec in 1758.

Several fictitious characters provide dramatic historic and symbolic aspects to the opera. In a handwritten note dating May 28, 1928 and published in the program of a public reading for the children of the composer, who had never heard the work before his death, J.-Ulric Voyer describes the characters[12] and their intrigues thus:

• Gemma, Dumas’ daughter and Raymond’s fiancée, symbolizes the image of France, which was treacherously killed in our country. (Role played by Marie-Rose Descarries in Montreal and Quebec) [13]
• Raymond, Gemma's hunter fiancé, symbolizes the suffering and rebellious people, who swears to one day take revenge. (Role played by P. Trottier in Montreal and Quebec)
• Gaston de St-Germain, marquis, plays the dignified representative of the nobility. (Role played by Charles-E. Brodeur in Montreal and Paul Trottier in Quebec)
• Dumas, Gemma’s father, symbolizes the oppressed people (Role played by Émile Lamarre in Montreal and J.E.A. Cloutier in Quebec)
• Madame Péan, Bigot’s friend and mistress, is the Canadian Pompadour (Role played by Jeanne Maubourg-Roberval in Montreal and Madam Dupuis-Becker in Quebec)
• Rosine, lthe Marquis de Saint Germain’s lover, symbolizes the flower of the nobility (Role played by Caro Lamoureux in Montreal and in Quebec)
• Bigot, also known as the Ours Noir, symbolizes the black stain on our glorious history (Role played by Arnold Becker in Montreal and Quebec)

(Toinon, Alice, three bandits, nobles, soldiers, peasants, servants, hunters and the people complete this casting and constitute the choirs)

" 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... " [12]

Here is a synopsis of each of the opera’s acts:[6]

• Act One

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.

• Act Two

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.

• Act Three

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.

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".[14] M. Honoré Vaillancourt,[15] 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 ".[3] Arnold Becker of New York's San Carlo Opera[16] 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. "[17] 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[18] " .

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.[19]

He studied at Wallace, studied the laws of musical composition with M. Lefrançois, organist of St-Roch,[20] and studied the piano with M. Hudson. In Montreal, he studied the organ and harmony with Léon Dessane and Auguste Descarries.[21]

L'Intendant Bigot – Program (Québec 1996)

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.[12] 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.

L'Intendant Bigot – Program (Québec 1998)

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.[22] 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 ".[23]

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.

In 1929, two excerpts of L'Intendant Bigot were recorded under the label Starr [25]: " 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 "[26].

On October 30, 1929, at Steinway Hall,[24] 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.[25]

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.[26] 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.[27]