Gaétan Laperrière

Laperrière, Gaétan
Gaétan Laperrière. Baritone, b Montreal 14 Dec 1952. Laperrière was first employed as a schoolteacher, and came to music comparatively late in life when he began to study voice with his uncle Robert Savoie. He won the 1984 Canadian Opera Company (COC) Young Canadian Mozart Singers' Competition and joined the COC Ensemble in 1984. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1986 with the Toronto Symphony, singing First Shepherd in Richard Strauss's Daphne, and his European debut in 1987 with the Opéra de Nice as Escamillo in Carmen. He has sung with the COC, at the National Arts Centre, and with opera companies in Montreal, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Houston, Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, Washington, and Arizona. Laperrière has also performed frequently in France with the Opéra de Paris Bastille and Opéra-Théâtre de Metz, and has appeared in productions in the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Japan.

Operatic Roles and Recordings

His repertoire has included the roles of Valentin (Faust); Marcello (La Bohème); Guglielmo (Così fan tutte); Silvio (Pagliacci); the Nightwatchman (Die Meistersinger); Lescaut (Manon); Zurga (The Pearl Fishers); Enrico (Lucia di Lammermoor); the Forester (The Cunning Little Vixen); Mercutio (Romeo and Juliet); Rodrigue (Don Carlos); Count Almaviva (The Marriage of Figaro); and Germont père (La Traviata). He has performed the title role in Rigoletto with Calgary Opera, Opéra de Québec, and Kentucky Opera, and played Scarpia in the Boston Lyric Opera's production of Tosca (2003-4). In 2003 he played Athanael in a production of Thaïs by Opéra de Montréal and created the role of Emilio Picariello in the world premiere of Filumena with the Calgary Opera. Laperrière can be heard on the 1993 recording Great Baritone Arias (CBC SMCD 5127).

Author Revised: Sarah Church

Bibliography

Mercer, Ruby. 'Spotlight: Gaétan Laperrière,' OpCan, vol 28, Winter 1987