Tuesday Voice Series | Master Class: Alain Coulombe, bass

Voice Studies at the University of Toronto Presents:
Master Class with Alain Coulombe, bass

Featuring singers from the Faculty of Music and pianist Suzy Smith.

PROGRAM

Mab, la reine des mensonges (Roméo et Juliette)
Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
Josh Gibson, baritone

Parto, parto ma tu ben mio (La clemenza di Tito)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Arushi Das, mezzo-soprano

Come Paride vezzoso (L’elisir d’amore)
Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
Vikram Srinivas, baritone

Ah! Je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir (Faust)
Charles Gounod
Chloé Dionne, soprano

Si corre dal notaio (Gianni Schicchi)
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Giovanni Rabbito, baritone

BIOGRAPHY

French-Canadian bass, Alain Coulombe, is one of the most prominent singers of his generation, recently noted as one of the Globe and Mail’s Canadian Opera Singers to Watch (2022). For more than 30 years, he has been a mainstay on all major Canadian stages, in opera and concert, while garnering international acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. Through his career he has collaborated with outstanding conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Kent Nagano, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jean-Marie Zeitouni, Richard Bradshaw, Helmut Rilling, Bernard Labadie, Alain Altinoglu, Jacques Lacombe, Ingo Metzmacher and Richard Bonynge. 

This season, Coulombe returns to l’Opéra de Montréal as Le Spectre in Hamlet, the Canadian Opera Company as l’Assistant de Descartes in La Reine Garçon and Calgary Opera to debut Simone in Gianni Schicchi. Alain’s 2023-24 season included two world premieres: he was Gaston in Messe Solennelle pour une pleine lune d’été by Michel Tremblay and Christian Thomas at le Festival d’opéra de Québec and l’Assistant de Descartes in La Reine Garçon by Michel Marc Bouchard and Julien Bilodeau at l’Opéra de Montréal. He also returned to his signature role of Zuniga in Bizet’s Carmen with l’Orchestre Philarmonique et Choeur des Mélomanes and Vancouver Opera.

Highlights from recent opera seasons include Il Commendatore in Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival, Der Doktor in Wozzeck and Archangel Uriel in the world premiere of CO2 at Il Teatro alla Scala, Clark Gable in the world premiere of Waiting for Miss Monroe and Geronte di Ravoir in Manon Lescaut at De Nationale Opera, Amsterdam, as well as Bishop Taché in Louis Riel at the Canadian Opera Company, le Festival d’opéra de Québec and the National Arts Centre. He was also Oroveso in Norma and Frère Laurent in Roméo et Juliette at the Calgary Opera, Merlin in Kopernikus and Arkel in Pelléas et Mélisande at Against the Grain Theatre, Frère Laurent in Roméo et Juliette and José Tripaldi in Ainadamar at l’Opéra de Montréal, Il Commendatore in Don Giovanni at l’Opéra de Québec, as well as Timur in the Vancouver Opera production of Turandot.

In concert, he recently was Don Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at l’Opéra de Québec, and he was bass soloist in the world premiere of Paul Frehner’s L.E.X. with Soundstreams, in a Tribute Concert to bass Joseph Rouleau at Le Festival International du Domaine Forget and in L’Opéra Français en Fête at Le Festival d’opéra de Québec. Bass soloist in Verdi’s Requiem with l’Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, as well as in Mozart’s Requiem at the Festival Music And Beyond, Coulombe was Zuniga in Carmen with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, The Gravedigger in Schumann’s Der Rose Pilgerfahrt Op.112 at Le Festival de Musique de Lanaudière and Le Père de Famille in Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ with the National Orchestra of Spain, Pax Christi Chorale, the Boston Symphony and the Dresdner Philarmonie.

On DVD, he is Phinée in the EuroArts production of Lully’s Persée and Masetto in the film Don Giovanni Unmasked by Rhombus Media.  On disc, he is Clark Gable in Robin de Raaff’s Waiting for Miss Monroe for Challenge Classics, Sam Jarvis Senior in Harry Somers’ Serinette, and the bass soloist in Somers’ The Death of Enkidu and Chura Churum for Centrediscs Records.

An esteemed Canadian artist, in 2023, bass Alain Coulombe was a nominee for the prestigious Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award by the Ontario Arts Council, for the significance and longevity of his singing career in Canada and abroad.

The Tuesday Voice Series is made possible in part by a generous gift from Dianne W. Henderson.

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the University of Toronto operates. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

As part of the Faculty’s commitment to improving Indigenous inclusion, we call upon all members of our community to start/continue their personal journeys towards understanding and acknowledging Indigenous peoples’ histories, truths and cultures. Visit indigenous.utoronto.ca to learn more.