Frédérique Vézina (born ) is a Canadian operatic

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

. Vézina gained recognition when she made her

Canadian Opera Company The Canadian Opera Company (COC) is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and one of the largest producers of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Cent ...

debut in 2002–2003 as Lisa and Mascha in Tchaikovsky's '' The Queen of Spades''. Critics hailed the arrival of a major presence on the operatic stage. Critic Robert Everett-Green of ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' praised her "big Act III aria" as "eloquent testimony to the character's own addiction to emotional gambling." She was cast in the Canadian debut of ''

The Handmaid's Tale ''The Handmaid's Tale'' is a futuristic dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood and published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England in a patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic state known as the Republic of Gilead, which h ...

'' in 2004. She was featured as Ellen Orford in Benjamin Britten's ''

Peter Grimes ''Peter Grimes'', Op. 33, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Montagu Slater based on the section "Peter Grimes", in George Crabbe's long narrative poem '' The Borough''. The "borough" of the opera is a fictional ...

'' and Belinda in ''

Dido and Aeneas ''Dido and Aeneas'' (Z. 626) is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the opera are uncertain. It was co ...

''. Vézina played

Filumena ''Filumena Marturano'' (, ), sometime performed in English as ''The Best House in Naples'', is a play written in 1946 by Italian playwright, actor and poet Eduardo De Filippo. It is the basis for the 1950 Spanish language Argentine musical film ' ...

at the

National Arts Centre The National Arts Centre (NAC) (french: Centre national des Arts) is a Arts centre, performing arts organisation in Ottawa, Ontario, along the Rideau Canal. It is based in the eponymous National Arts Centre (building), National Arts Centre build ...

28 April 2005 and 30 April.

Career

Born in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

, Vézina attended the F.A.C.E. high school for performing arts, and graduated from

CÉGEP A CEGEP ( or ; ), also written cégep, CÉGEP and cegep, is a publicly funded college providing technical, academic, vocational or a mix of programs; they are exclusive to the province of Quebec's education system. A loanword from French, it ...

Vanier College Vanier College ( French: ''Collège Vanier'') is an English-language public college located in the Saint-Laurent borough of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 1970 as the second English-language public college of Quebec's public colle ...

. Vézina completed a Bachelor of Music Degree at the

Schulich School of Music The Schulich School of Music (also known as Schulich) is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 555, rue Sherbrooke Ouest (555, Sherbrooke Street West). The faculty was named after benef ...

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

in 2002. She placed first for three consecutive years at the

National Association of Teachers of Singing The National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) is a professional organization for singing teachers, and it is the largest association of its kind in the world. There are more than 6,500 members, mostly from the United States. Additional m ...

competition (1996, 1997, and 1999) and was awarded the Most Promising Singer prize in 1997. In 2002, at the Trois-Rivières Symphony competition, she was awarded the Grand Prize as well as a recital broadcast on

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

. Vézina placed first at the National Music Festival competition in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

as well as in the Concours International de Chant de Marmande (France). She was a

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...

semi-finalist in 2004 and a winner of the Début Inc Young Artists Competition. Vézina has collaborated with internationally renowned conductors including Richard Bradshaw, James Conlon, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Hans Fricke, Bernard Labadie, Jacques Lacombe, Kent Nagano, Peter Oundjian, Yoav Talmi, Bramwell Tovey, and Timothy Vernon. Her most notable roles include, Mimi (La Bohème), Liza (Queen os Spades), Tatyana (Eugen Onegin), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro), Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes) and the creation of Lillian Alling (Lillian Alling). Vézina received a Graduate Diploma in Opera from The Juilliard School of Music and was a lecturer at University of Western Ontario since 2011. She has been a Sessional Voice Instructor at the University of Toronto since 2013.

References

;Citations

External links

Frédérique Vézina
at Don Wright Faculty of Music * https://frederiquevezina.ca/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Vezina, Frederique Date of birth missing (living people) 1970s births Living people Canadian operatic sopranos 21st-century Canadian women opera singers Musicians from Montreal McGill University School of Music alumni

Career

See also

References

External links