Micheline Tessier

Hélène Micheline Tessier (born July 21, 1932 in Paris , † February 25, 2006 in Montreal ) was a Canadian opera singer (soprano) and vocal teacher.

Tessier studied singing from 1945 to 1949 at the École normal de musique with Roger Filiatrault . She took private lessons until 1949, when she studied opera singing with Martial Singher , Paul Ulanowsky , Otto Guth and Rudolph with the support of the Sarah Fischer Concerts, Les Amis de'l art and the provincial government of Québec in New York (mostly at Mannes College) Fellner . During this time she was a member of the Juilliard Opera Theater.

During the Marlboro Festivals in Vermont in 1955 and 1956 she sang cantatas by Rameau and Bach , the soprano part in Arnold Schönberg 's second string quartet and accompanied by Rudolf Serkin songs by Adolf Busch . In 1957 she was one of the finalists of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air and won first prize at the international artist competition in Geneva. At the Montreal Festivals in 1957 she sang Donna Elvira in ten performances of the opera Don Giovanni , and in 1958 she appeared in the Opera Guild of Montreal as Nanetta in Falstaff .

In the 1959–1960 season Tessier was engaged at the Landestheater Detmold . There she sang, among others, Dorothea in Jaromir Weinberger's Schwanda, the Bagpiper , Karolka in Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa and Violetta in La traviata , with which she was also very successful in Hanover. After returning to Canada, she worked with Bernard Diamant , made her debut with the Canadian Opera Company as Micaela in Carmen (1961) and performed at community concerts on radio and television. With Jean-Louis Pellerin and Gaston Germain she founded the Trio Canadien Bel Canto, with whom she toured Canada from 1963 to 1965 for Youth and Music Canada.

Tessier has appeared as a soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra , the Orchester Symphonique de Québec , the McGill Chamber Orchestra, the National Arts Center Orchestra and the Bordeaux Symphony Orchestra (1965). At the Théâtre lyrique de Nouvelle-France she performed successfully as Musetta in La Bohème (1962), Tosca (1963), Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly (1964) and Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte (1970). In 1964 at Carnegie Hall she sang Eudoxie alongside Richard Tucker in a concert performance of Jacques Fromental Halévy's opera La Juive . On a trip to the USSR in 1968 she sang Tosca and Cio-Cio-San at the opera houses in Odessa, Tbilisi and Yerevan and French songs on Moscow television.

From 1967 to 1969 Tessier taught at the École normal, then until 1974 at the University of Québec , where she performed chamber operas by Franz Schubert , Emmanuel Chabrier , Albert Roussel and Léo Delibes with her students . Until 1976 she taught at the Collège Lionel-Groulx, after which she headed the music department at Marguerite-Bourgeoys College until 1981. From 1981 to 1885 she was general director of Youth and Music Canada, then until 1990 its artistic director. From 1977 to 1982 she was a board member, 1982–1983 President of the Canadian Music Council, and 1983–1984 President of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, of which she became an honorary member in 1994. Tessier was married to the music critic Gilles Potvin since 1960 .

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• Micheline Tessier at Bach Cantatas (English)
• The Canadian Encyclopedia - Micheline Tessier