Carmen: A Cast of Dozens!

What a lovely note on which to end the 2018-2019 season of the Opéra de Montréal.

The usual disclaimer applies as always — not an expert, just have my own observations, sometimes comment out of left field…

Right from the beginning I knew I was going to like this production of Carmen. The overture so familiar that I was almost convinced that Bugs Bunny had done three operas, and not the two I can remember more clearly. Bizet, who died without knowing what a hit this work would become, is to be revered for a lively start, but the credit for the scene that greets our eye as the curtain goes up goes entirely to the Opéra de Montréal.

Carmen walking in silently, pulling and constrained by an enormous train of red fabric from which she eventually breaks free (but will see again). It doesn’t take long for the stage to become populated by a huge crowd, there almost all the time, which is lovely for its wealth of costumes, but even more so for the many chorus singing roles. Love that!

Carmen might be the headliner, but let’s take a moment to talk about Micaëla, who enters searching for Don José to deliver a letter from his mother, but also to show her love for him, and his mother’s wish that he marry the messenger! France Bellemare has a really strong and beautiful voice. If she had more parts to sing, she would surely have stolen the show. Just lovely.

Seductress Carmen, arrested for her part in a fight in the factory, uses her wiles to persuade Don José to let her escape. He suffers the consequences, but seeks her out after his release from prison and she persuades him then to commit a further transgression by deserting to join the gang of smugglers.

Act 3 opens with a lovely visual effect, a series of lanterns working their way onto the stage behind the scree. There were images on the scree (projections?), but the way I saw it, it seemed like some of those lanterns were coming through it into the foreground. I think I was fooled by the visual effects! In any case, we ended up in the smugglers’ camp, and two of the Gypsy women (yes, I know, Roma women, but Bizet lived in another time!) were reading their own cards, with ever more fanciful and profitable fortunes, right up to the death of a wealthy husband, leaving the card reader a wealthy widow (she seemed delighted by that). Count on Carmen to cast a pall over that party, with a self-reading of doom and gloom and death! No wonder her relationships don’t last long!

Fabulous toreador Escamillo makes a play for Carmen, but all he succeeds in doing is provoking Don José into a fight. Carmen has to intervene to break it up. Micaëla announces Don José’s mother’s severe illness and imminent death, he leaves with her, and that is too much for Carmen. End of that relationship…where is that toreador?

There’s a lovely crowd scene celebrating the arrival of the various teams of bullfighters, each with a role so specific that I was confronted by my ignorance of bullfighting and what everyone’s role might be. Escamillo is, of course, of the highest rank and the most lauded. Also the most adored by Carmen, apparently, who has moved on rather nicely from her last failed relationship.

If only Don José had moved on, too, we might have a happier ending. Instead, we get the spectre of controlling intimate relationship violence, as he tries to prevent Carmen from returning to the bullring and eventually stabs her. Cue the return of the red cloth, this time a giant banner hanging from above, attached to Carmen in her death like a river of blood and completing the metaphor. Don José proclaims his guilt and invites arrest. The curtain falls before we get to that.

So now that I have mistold the story (that you find elsewhere with greater clarity, I’m sure), let me share my uninformed opinions about the singing, the costumes and the sets!

This is really what I look for in an opera: catchy tunes, beautifully sung, opulent costumes (and SO MANY of them, what with the crowd on the stage!). I love that there are many duets and many songs for the chorus, as they sounded fabulous. The children (there were many of them, too) were excellent in their roles and excellent singers as well. I couldn’t see in the program who they might have been, but we suspected a school somewhere in Montreal.

Oh, and let me appreciate the nods to flamenco. The rhythms are not in Bizet’s work, but we do get a couple of guitars on stage, the sound of castanets from the orchestra, and some distinctly flamenco moves. I love flamenco and associate it with the Carmen story (though as an aside, I also associate with this lovely video of a protest in a Spanish bank — how more delightful can you get than deploying this powerful culture-specific art form to protest the ravages of modern finance?!)

The set was spare, the outdoor square doubling as an indoor space by the addition of furniture, some other elements descending from above to suggest a more industrial area (smuggling space). The multimedia aspect was a little light in this one, with a short thunderstorm and the projections and other use of light that I have already noted.

We left very satisfied, though, and would highly recommend seeing this on one of its upcoming dates (7. 9, 11 and 13 May 2019). Tickets here if there are any left!

Rigoletto: It’s all good fun until somebody gets stabbed

Okay, we’ll just start with the usual warning — that I am no musical or operatic expert — and add another about the time and place and the horrible place of women at the time of the penning of the opera, the time it was set and…well…even today. Yes, #GildaToo.

All of that said, the Opéra de Montréal’s production of Rigoletto was a delight and an excellent way to start off the new season. I have a personal penchant for bouncy Italian music, soaring duets and solos, and even for a good rollicking chorus, and I got them all. Those and the bonus of soprano Myriam Leblanc treating us to some exceptionally beautiful high notes and bass baritone Vartan Gabrielian setting my little gay heart aflutter with some lovely low notes. And I believe those two are both locals, or at least Canadians! Lovely!

The story is, of course, completely awful. The lascivious Duke has his way with any woman he wants and tends to punish the men who dare to stand up to him about that. Very little opportunity to hear what the women involved might want, of course. A carelessly broad curse tossed out by Monterone following the “seduction” of his daughter, the Countess Ceprano, seems to have stricken Rigoletto, the court jester, even more than the Duke who did the “seducing”. (Yes, those quotation marks are an expression of doubt around the issue of consent.) Rigoletto, for all his mocking of the male “victims” of the Duke’s philandering with “their” women, wants very much to protect his daughter from his employer.

The crowd will have none of that, thinking that Gilda is Rigoletto’s mistress, not his daughter, and they set out to kidnap her, involving a strangely unsuspecting Rigoletto in the plot, blindfolded of course. Gilda is delivered to the Duke, who she already knows as “a poor student” who spied her in church and has professed his love to her. The crowd’s recounting of the kidnapping of Gilda to the Duke is one of the delightful musical moments (crowd edition) of the production for me.

Rigoletto gets Gilda back and arranges for her to escape to Verona disguised as a man while he takes advantage of an offer from the assassin/innkeeper Sparafucile (Gabrielian — swoon — beautiful voice AND dangerous!) to be done with the Duke forever. Rigoletto pays half up front after he and the yet-undisguised Gilda overhear the Duke’s overtures to Sparafucile’s sister Maddalena (and he sings that women are fickle!), to return with the second installment when the deed is done. He insists on being the one who will throw the body into the river.

Maddalena develops a soft spot for the Duke and proposes that her brother instead kill Rigoletto when he returns, thereby getting the whole sum anyway, but Sparfucile has scruples and will not betray his client. Not until version two of the ruse presents itself in the form of a beggar who knocks at the door. Killing the beggar instead of the Duke to fool Rigoletto is just fine, apparently. Alas, the beggar is Gilda in her man drag and she is stabbed from behind by our dangerous hitman.

Sparafucile delivers the body to Rigoletto as arranged and collects his final payment. Rigoletto is unable to resist looking at the corpse — especially after hearing the Duke in the distance singing La dona è mobile — and discovers his daughter, who seems to come back to life for a bit to sing (this is opera after all), and then sings as an angel from atop the city walls. The philandering Duke has doubtless moved on to his next conquest.

I liked the sets, also as usual. Great walls in a state of disrepair, cutaway views of courtyards, and very little disruption of the action for the changes. In one spot, Rigoletto and Gilda are singing in front of the scrim and the curtain, allowing for a quick set change that is discreet and well-executed. The lighting also bears mentioning, as the thunder/lightning storm that unfolds while we are looking into the courtyard at Sparafucile’s wayside inn continues through the aforementioned scene change — we see flashes of light at the bottom of the curtain. Very clever.

To recap: lovely opera, horrible story, beautiful voices, nice sets and good lighting effects.

To go off on a tangent, I think it might be time for the conductor to update his profile photo (he looked significantly older in person!) and it might be time for me to invest in some opera glasses (I’m looking at you, Vartan Gabrielian!).

Ritual Beauty, Unusual Sound

What a lovely evening I just spent. Delightful company and an extremely engaging première performance of Svadba by the Atelier Lyrique of the Opéra de Montréal.

When I invited my friend, I described the performance as an a capella Serbian hen party. Not far off in terms of the content, but I sold it short in omitting what I couldn’t have known at the time — a multimedia experience, an exposure to voices that reminded me of a Bulgarian women’s choir with which I and my colleagues were completely obsessed at the end of the 1980s/beginning of the 1990s.

Let’s start where I know my way: the story. It is a group of women who are preparing their friend for her wedding. The go through all manner of things…grooming, hair dyeing, discussing how the proposal came about, the qualities of the groom, their reminiscences of childhood games, and what a marriage means in terms of separation from family and reconnection with a family to be. It ends with the bride and her five friends, all bridesmaids, lined up for the wedding.

It’s really all about the voices, and they were beautiful and strong, wrapping around each other in amazing melodies, swooping and curling into strange and sometimes jarring sounds. I know that some of these were just nonsense syllables, one trip took us through the Serbian alphabet, but also words and phrases, sometimes sung in the round and slightly out of synch (intentionally) like some modern music on loops of slightly different lengths that phases together and apart. I was amazed at the capacity of the six women on stage to maintain a nonstop performance through multiple changes in cadence and tone, notes that took us to the mystery of the foreign by seeming to sour at the end, just slightly. Strikingly beautiful.

As if the challenging singing were not enough, the women also contributed sounds, whether by stomping, clapping, slapping their thighs, or with instruments like a little whistle deftly played into birdsong, cylinders manipulated into rain or shower water, a drum. These combined seamlessly with the vocals to create a very impressive performance.

The set was very simple, with thin white curtains/blinds “hiding” the bridesmaids’ dresses, but also serving as surfaces on which words and syllables and nonsense sounds were projected, floating up organically from the singers. One of those blinds turned out to be more like a circus silk, as the bride sat in it like a swing. A few chairs, a white sheet and a table on wheels completed the props, transforming smoothly into what they needed to be.

At the end, after all the applause (and how refreshing that every person joining them on the stage in the various supporting and directing roles was also a woman!) two guys with traditional wedding-type instruments (a big bass and an accordion) came out as plates of cake were set out. I don’t know if the traditional wedding follow-up of cake and dance will follow every performance; we had the honour of sharing our experience with the Serbian Ambassador and the Honorary Consul in Montréal.

Let me know if there’s cake on the other nights. And that — in case it wasn’t already clear — means DO go, and then report back on the cake situation.

Enjoy!

Another Notch in Their Belt

I might be going out on a limb here, but I suspect that there were a lot of actual Pink Floyd fans at the opera this evening for the world premiere of Another Brick in the Wall, the opera. It might have been the rather lower age of the audience or the unfamiliar faces (although as an “extra” opera in the season and one with more performances than most the unfamiliar faces might be par for the course), but it really was the spontaneous standing ovation before the opera even began when it was pointed out that Roger Waters was in the audience. All before a single note had been played or sung.

To my usual caveat (of not being an expert in opera) let me add another: not a big Pink Floyd fan. But as a person of a certain age, “The Wall” is very familiar. It was ubiquitous in my youth, released at the start of my second year in university. It seems that, as I age, I get more generous with the category of “youth”. But I digress…

I really have to start with the multimedia expertise that the Opéra de Montréal has incorporated into its productions. It’s funny that I had been thinking it was much less present this season, but they were obviously gearing up for the flood of projection, light and sound that took us to a crowded concert, into war, to school and to a place of ghostly memories, among others. Three real stand-outs for me: with soldiers on stage and war on the screen, a rush of sound and a sweep of lights put us right under a passing warplane; the almost psychedelic projected corridors and shapes that led us into infinity without moving a muscle; and the looming memory of a lost love showing through a wall become frosted window, one hand print at a time. Extremely well done.

And for the projection of all this creativity? Another very simple and very effective set, basically two wall-like structures that pivoted and came together and apart and, more importantly, became whatever they needed to be. At one point, they were turned around and became a fire escape-like structure, full of people and eventually armed soldiers training their guns on us. Small furniture moved about, added and taken away, by the players.

Oh, and the players! There was a huge and omnipresent chorus that really evoked for me a “famous person” reality of never being able to be without an audience, even when alone. Just to situate the size of this chorus, the program tells us there are 46 choristers, plus 20 extras who weren’t singing. And while there weren’t as many soaring arias as there are in many operas, Montréal’s own Étienne Dupuis sang beautifully and acted well, too! I don’t know the name of the young boy who played Pink as a child, but he acquitted himself with aplomb.

Let’s have a nod to the choreography, too. Everything from the stylized slo-mo concert goers, including a body surf to the stage, to soldiers at war, protesters and riot police in the streets, and kids rebelling in the classroom. I’m not even doing it justice here, and it might have been because of the large number of people on the stage almost all the time, but I really felt this production stood out as being more thoroughly and noticeably choreographed than so many others. A real treat.

The second act was definitely the more emotionally powerful, as Pink is revisited by the notable figures of his past. There were two elements after the intermission that I found either confusing or bizarre. I don’t know if I was projecting today’s politics onto the content, but I felt like the whole fascist-looking force complete with torture and a wall might have been ripped from the headlines of today’s papers (or tomorrow’s). I also couldn’t tell whether the chorus was repeating “Run” or “Trump”. Apparently my hearing is not what it used to be.

Also, the wacky feathered costumes were just odd. For me, they brought back an opera memory, as there used to be a woman sitting near my seats who often wore a most lovely feather collar to the performances. She subsequently moved further to the front and off to the side, then seems to have disappeared altogether (or stopped wearing the feather collar). Anyway, that was a digression, just like the feather costumes were for the performance.

When it was over, a very quick and very long standing ovation. It started from the first bow by the chorus and the extras, built with the arrival of each more major singer, and then stepped up yet another notch when Roger Waters walked on stage. That’s almost too bad, as I really thought the stars and perhaps the composer ought to have been more celebrated than the inspiration of the piece. But there was an amusing moment in the curtain calls, too, as one of the extras bowed with the stars, then realized that she had made a faux pas, then just kept doing it until everyone joined in. A nice little laugh at the end.

There are nine more presentations of this opera coming up, and I would recommend seeing it for any of the reasons above. If you’re a Pink Floyd fan, get a taste of opera. If you’re an opera fan, try out something original and thoroughly steeped in multimedia magnificence.

What you probably won’t get is Roger Waters in the audience and then on the stage. We got that opening night.

Lillies and Accolades

What a beautiful way to end the 2015-2016 season at the Opéra de Montréal. Michel Marc Bouchard’s Les Feluettes, originally a play read for the first time in the mid-1980s, produced as a film (Lilies) in 1996 and now a very moving opera. The author himself is the librettist, with music by composer Kevin March.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story, let me summarize in my own way (i.e. poorly). The piece opens with a Bishop arriving in a prison to hear the confession of a prisoner who has requested his presence explicitly. This won’t be a confession like any other. The two share a history from the same Québec town and the prisoner, with the other inmates, has a story to tell in the form of a play. The Bishop is obliged to stay and watch.

It’s the story of two young men in love (above, in their roles in a play about St. Sebatian), a third who is bitter about his exclusion, a father violently rejecting his son and compelling his marriage to a nastily pretentious Parisienne. Before Simon (Etienne Dupuis) and his new bride leave Roberval for Paris (frustrated in any case by the jealous Bilodeau — yes, the future Bishop — setting fire to the hot air balloon that will transport them part of the way), he goes to Vallier (Jean-Michel Richer) to wish him a happy birthday (and good-bye) and the two end up confessing their love for each other. Vallier’s despairing mother (the cause is her estranged husband, not her son) enlists Vallier’s aid in killing herself and Simon and Vallier wake up in each other’s arms the next day. Bilodeau has arranged the couple’s escape, but is spurned by Simon (he asked Simon for a kiss), and thrown out. Simon and Villiers make a pact to die together in a fire, but Bilodeau saves Simon and deliberately leaves Vallier to die, thinking that Simon will forever think of him (Bilodeau), be it with love or with hatred. The Bishop rises from his chair and confesses his role in saving Simon and leaving Vallier to die, at which point the prisoners, who have been playing all the parts of the play, draw their knives and surround him. Spoiler alert! Is it not always better to leave someone stewing forever in his own self-disappointment than giving him the sweet swift exit of death?

You might want to see the opera, the movie or the play if you want to catch the story in all its subtleties.

So how was my opera experience? As I began this post, I said it was a beautiful way to end the season and it most certainly was. When we entered the Salle Wilfrid Pelletier at Place des Arts, the first surprise was visible: the orchestra up on the stage at the back, behind the prison bars of the set. How delightful to see them (my seats are parterre, so I have rarely been able to see the orchestra during the performance). The set itself was spare and adaptable, with many panels of prison bars that could move around as needed, and then small bits of furniture that the players (perhaps the chorus?) could move about as needed. Some really innovative use of flashlights in the beginning, and the Opéra de Montréal continues to deploy its multimedia skills very expertly. A sheet obscures the orchestra, but serves for the projection of the image of the school, the idea of flames, a vague forest. Sometimes clear, sometimes figurative, always effective. Brought to earth, the sheet continues as a barren ground, a shared bed, the flames of the fateful fire…and when it disappears, it is like a CGI effect, swift and clean. Amazing multiple use of a simple object. There was real fire, too — a lighter, but a couple of other fire effects that made me wonder how they were achieved, as well as how they were controlled! The string holding the balloon was like a fuse at one point, while at another, Simon seemed to have fire coming from both his hands.

Another little note about the staging, in particular the scene in which Simon’s father punishes him for the kiss he has heard about (above). Total drama, and very effective at communicating that sort of homophobic punishment that was likely all too common in the deeply religious, deeply traditional family of the past. Well, we hope it is the past here, if not everywhere in the world. Such a perverted expression of control rather than love, but it was depicted very effectively indeed on stage.

Music? Oh yes, the music was lovely. I was a little worried about how the story might lend itself to being sung, but when it was over, I really had no doubts left. After some really toughing duets and choral numbers backing them up, I’m almost left wondering how the story can be told without them. There is nothing like an entwined duet between lovers to really paint the picture of their emotions. I’ve been a fan of Etienne Dupuis for some time, but now I am equally sold on Jean-Michel Richer. They sang beautifully together and beautifully apart as well. And I wouldn’t be fulfilling expectations of me as a gay man if my heart hadn’t fluttered at the duet in the bathtub with a naked Vallier and a shirtless Simon. Beyond the thrill of the costuming, it was really all about the singing and the haunting words of that poem set to music that returns many times during the opera. A little bonus on the occasion of the engagement party for Simon and Lydie-Anne, with some traditional Québécois music and an excellent clogging performance by Félix Monette-Dubeau. A taste of the music:

The costumes were very inventive. The Bishop looked real in his outfit, and the prisoners playing the many roles in the play wore costumes made of elements that prisoners might have available to them — grey wool socks piled as fancy hats, blankets and prison garb gathered into bustles and frills. I’m pretty sure that the conductor of the orchestra was also wearing a prison outfit, complete with number on the back, which is just as clever as it is unexpected. Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t chortle at the vicious comment by Lydie-Anne to Vallier’s mother (paraphrasing): what a beautiful dress, it’s so rare to find any examples that style still being worn. Ouch! Believe me, there were more reasons to not shed any tears for her being left by Simon, first for Vallier and then, presumably, for prison. I don’t think I would be voluntarily putting myself in any social situation with her anytime soon.



It’s a moving story adapted lovingly and expertly to the operatic stage. And like the author says at the end of the video above, I am very glad to say that, for this world première, I was there for the first performance. Don’t miss the chance to see it.

Opéra de Montréal — 24th, 26th, 28th May 2016
Pacific Opera Victoria — 20th, 22nd, 28th, 30th April 2017

18th AIDSiversary

Now my diagnosis is old enough to order a drink in a bar.

It’s a funny thing, remembering that moment that really changed my perception of a lot of things in my life. It was the beginning of the “cautionary tale” that I tell when sharing my life experience with others — don’t wait as long as I did to get tested, it will make your life more difficult.

But there are other elements that stick with me, most of which I have written about before:

• The horrible sensation of suffocating with pneumonia, especially venturing into the cold.
• My doctor sending me to the emergency with a note that I read on the way (kind of took the edge off the news).
• My friend Doug coming to get me and going back into the cold to get my prescription filled.
• The bronchoscopy and the night in a hospital bed with oxygen recovering the strength to go home.
• My friend Maychai taking me home that second time, leaving me with a lovely dinner of holiday leftovers.
• The short call with my parents (I still couldn’t breathe well) with an easy disclosure because of how positively they had reacted to my coming out many years earlier.
• The daily phone calls I got through the holidays from the immune deficiency doctor checking on my pneumonia recovery.
• The easy consent to the HIV test when I already knew what the result would be.
• The secondary shock of the first CD4+ count (it was 4).

Those little snapshots of a crazy time that changed my life. I think about them anew each year at this time. How about some updates?

• Not being able to breathe remains one of the things that scares me the most, so I’m very proactive about protecting myself from respiratory illnesses (vaccines, baby!).
• My doctor has now retired and I am seeing another doctor. I’m left, however, with a lasting appreciation of my doctor’s respecting my stupid decisions along the way to not be tested for HIV, even as he gently pushed me to. That respect gave me the confidence that is so very necessary in a doctor-patient relationship.
• We lost Doug in 2014 and I miss him every day. I do go through cycles of seeing different friends more or less often over time, but I will always appreciate the easy comfort I feel with them, and the sense that I can count on help when I need it. A solid circle of friends is so precious.
• I remember the nurse who found me a bed in the hospital the night after my bronchoscopy when I was too weak and oxygen-deprived to go home and take care of myself. He was doing his job, but doing it well and with compassion, and I will always appreciate that.
• More friends. Maychai was my colleague and continues to be my friend. I don’t see her enough, but I always have a lovely time when I do.
• The unreservedly positive reaction I got from my parents to my coming out as gay was so important to me. After years of anguish and fear of rejection, I got their loving support and I knew 16 years later that my HIV diagnosis was not something I had to hide from them either. I don’t have Mum anymore, but I have Dad and I enjoy talking to him every week and visiting him, though less often than I should.
• So many of our encounters with the medical system can seem devoid of actual human feeling — they are understaffed and overwhelmed — that it is always a refreshing surprise to be on the receiving end of someone going out of his or her way to check up on you. That almost everyone has a story about that one health care provider (or more) who went the extra distance and provided a touch of humanity in a time of distress is so much truer an indication of the humanity that is there every day.
• When you’re ready for something, it’s always easier. I spent quite a number of years resisting taking an HIV test because I feared it would be positive and didn’t know if I could handle it, even with the solid support network I had and continue to have. You can really do anything with support and a crisis like the one I lived 18 years ago really underlines that for me.
• I still have a low CD4+ count. It isn’t 4, but more like 260, still lower than it ought to be and low enough for me to be able to cling to a bit of my personal pessimism. But beyond the odd cold that lasts longer than it should and a couple of bouts of gastro-intestinal problems after travel to exotic places I have been pretty healthy this whole time and never had to stop working.

I know that some in my community will balk at my use of “AIDS” as opposed to HIV, but I have that badge (had my AIDS-defining illness), so choke on it, kids! I use it for the shock value, for the recognition it gets among the less-informed. I also use it knowing that its meaning has changed: AIDS used to be a prognosis, and not a good one; now it is a diagnosis and while that is also not good, it is entirely possible to leave it behind and find your health.

And just to do that thing that drives me crazy when uttered without explanation: getting HIV has had some positive impacts in my life, if you’ll pardon the pun, but impacts that you can also get without the HIV, but with a little introspection and reconsideration of values.

Happy AIDSiversary to me!

Voting for Equality

I will confess that I felt the same sense of elation as so many others, tinged with a great deal of relief, when the Irish electorate voted decisively to enshrine marriage equality in the country’s constitution. I can’t help wondering, though, what negative effects this might have on other fights for equality, for access to the protections and services our modern societies provide for their citizens. It’s about a majority having the power to determine the level of protection it will afford to a minority. That’s a scary power.

That 62-38% result is pretty stark on the face of it, and very affirming for LGBT Irish people. I’m sure they all had their classic Sally Field at the Oscars moments after the results were announced Saturday: “You like me, you really like me!” While I’m not trying to be Debbie Downer (I guess it just comes naturally), the variations start to point to the problems. Does it mean something different to live in an area that voted over 70% “Yes” as opposed to one where the “Yes” just squeaked through? And considering the turnout of about 61%, even a county that voted 70% for the amendment didn’t actually have a majority of the eligible voters in favour (70% of 61% is less than 43%).

A single county had a “No” majority and as others in the country point an accusing finger at them, they stiffen their opposition, insisting on their democratic right to have voted the way they did. So they had a right to deny my rights?

I do recognize that the Irish situation was different from many. That they had to make a change to their constitution probably means that there was some “traditional” homophobia already enshrined there (and not knowing if that was the case is my great shame as a “researcher”). If there is a prescribed way to change a constitution, you can’t really get around that without becoming lawless, so I’ll grant the necessity of the vote in that sense.

You will hear right wingers in the United States shout for measures like marriage equality to be put to a popular vote, and that is precisely because they have a certain confidence that they can sway the majority to vote their way. Heck, if it can happen in hippie-dippie California, how would the vote turn out in Texas, or Alabama? I think we know the answer to that. In California, it took the courts to undo the discrimination and to tell the population and the legislators that they aren’t allowed to discriminate against that minority. When the legislators lack the courage or principles to protect the basic rights of the few from the will of the many, it becomes the role of the courts to make them do it.

Human rights legislation generally is meant to protect a despised minority from the will of the majority. That might sound a little extreme, especially in this context where the minority doesn’t seem to be all that despised after all, but it truly is the measure of the success of such protections. If an unpopular minority cannot be discriminated against because of the intercession of human rights protections, those protections are working.

If those protections are to be decided upon by the majority, they risk ending up meaningless.

Consensus québécois : un guide plutôt qu’un permis

An English version of this article is published on PositiveLite.

L’Institut national de la santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) et vient de publier un consensus d’experts (version intégrale ici) à l’effet que la charge virale indétectable sert à réduire le risque de transmission du VIH à un niveau qualifié de «négligeable ou très faible » pour des activités autrement à risque élevé. Ce consensus est soutenu par un avis de santé publique publié par le Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS). Bien sûr, ce consensus s’articule en fonction de plusieurs principes précis, et il est important de bien comprendre les conditions qui s’appliquent à cet énoncé.

Six conditions incontournables, commentées :

1. Partenaires stables et exclusifs

Le Consensus offre une définition vague de « engagés l’un envers l’autre » et fait référence à l’étude HPTN052 qui exigeait que le couple soit formé depuis au moins trois mois. La stabilité et l’exclusivité servent à éliminer beaucoup d’incertitudes par rapport à l’exposition à d’autres ITSS, surtout dans un contexte où les deux partenaires sont dépistés régulièrement. (Dans l’étude HPTN052 il y a eu des transmissions du VIH, mais en dehors du couple.)

2. Aucune autre infection transmise sexuellement ou par le sang (ITSS)

Nous savons que la présence d’une autre ITSS peut avoir un impact sur la charge virale et sur les possibilités de transmettre ou de contracter le VIH, les irritations et lésions offrant des portes d’entrée au virus. Donc, il est clair que l’absence d’ITSS offre plus de certitude par rapport au maintien d’une charge virale indétectable et à d’autres facteurs.

3. Le partenaire séropositif a une charge virale indétectable sur au moins deux mesures consécutives sur une période de six mois

Comme la plupart des personnes vivant avec le VIH ont des tests de charge virale seulement trois ou quatre fois par année, l’exigence de tests consécutifs sur une période définie sert à assurer la stabilité de la charge virale. S’il y a une brusque remontée (un « blip ») on remet le compteur des mois d’indétectabilité à zéro à partir du prochain résultat de charge virale indétectable.

4. Le partenaire séropositif a un taux d’adhérence aux médicaments de 95% ou plus

Ce 95% d’adhérence nous est familier comme référence : c’est le taux d’adhérence requis pour s’assurer que le virus ne développe pas des mutations résistantes aux composantes du dosage du traitement. Mutations et résistances mènent à la détectabilité et à des  risques accrus de transmission (pour ne pas parler de l’effet sur la santé de la personne elle-même!).

5. Les deux partenaires ont un suivi médical régulier avec dépistage d’ITSS, mesure de charge virale pour le partenaire séropositif et dépistage du VIH pour le partenaire séronégatif

Cette condition est posée comme garantie des conditions 2 et 3 (absence d’ITSS, charge virale indétectable). Un bon suivi médical identifierait des variations de la charge virale et repérerait rapidement une transmission au partenaire auparavant séronégatif.

6. Les deux partenaires ont un counseling approprié et régulier qui touche les conditions énumérées ci-dessus, la réduction des risques, le port du condom et (pour le partenaire séropositif) les aspects légaux et les conséquences possibles de la non-divulgation du statut sérologique à son partenaire

Le counseling sert à offrir aux partenaires l’opportunité de s’informer et de valider leur compréhension de l’ensemble des éléments précédents. À long terme, ces sessions de counseling permettront également de communiquer aux partenaires les nouveaux développements scientifiques qui peuvent affecter leur évaluation des risques encourus par leurs différentes activités. Notons que dans le cas d’un couple qui respecte l’ensemble de ces conditions, il ne peut pas être question de la non-divulgation : ici, les partenaires séronégatifs sont au courant du statut de séropositivité de leur partenaire.

Quelle est l’importance de ce Consensus québécois ?

Après la publication de l’énoncé de la Commission fédérale suisse en 2008, les autorités de la santé publique de plusieurs pays et provinces se sont rapidement distancées de l’énoncé, n’étant pas prêtes à reconnaître qu’il y avait des situations dans lesquelles on pouvait affirmer que le risque de transmission du VIH est quasiment nul sans utilisation du moyen de prévention classique, soit le condom. Mais depuis ce temps, les  recherches se sont poursuivies et l’intérêt pour l’utilisation des traitements comme moyen de réduire la transmission du VIH n’a cessé de croître.

Le Consensus québécois de l’INSPQ réaffirme non seulement ce que la Commission fédérale suisse a présentait en 2008, mais étend sa position aux couples homosexuels et à de différentes activités — que ce soit les relations orales, vaginales ou anales — et arrive à la même conclusion : lorsque sont respectées l’ensemble des conditions et même en l’absence d’utilisation du condom, le risque est quand même réduit au niveau « négligeable ou très faible ». Dans le contexte actuel où l’on insiste de plus en plus sur la prise précoce des traitements anti-VIH afin de réduire la transmission, voici enfin un bénéfice pour les couples qui répondent aux critères énumérés : ils peuvent utiliser ou non le condom sans s’exposer à des risques accrus de transmission entre eux.

Le Consensus ne fait pas de comparaison entre  l’efficacité des condoms et la charge virale indétectable, car l’état des études actuelles ne permet pas d’arriver à de telles conclusions pour le moment. Il reconnaît aussi que si l’ensemble des conditions n’est pas respecté, il demeure plausible malgré tout que le risque soit moindre qu’avec une charge virale détectable, mais les études ne permettent pas de quantifier le risque ou la réduction du risque.

Et les autres nouvelles que nous entendons…?

Vous avez peut-être entendu parler du rapport intérimaire de l’étude Partners à la conférence CROI aux États-Unis. Celle-ci porte sur le suivi d’un nombre important d’actes sexuels des sujets de l’étude, avec et sans condoms, avec et sans ITSS, entre partenaires de sexe opposé tout comme de même sexe, et dans aucun cas y a-t-on observé une transmission du VIH. Gardons toutefois en mémoire qu’il s’agit de chercheurs partageant les résultats préliminaires d’une étude en cours. Généralement, on attend la fin d’une étude avant d’en tirer les conclusions; mais il semble que ces résultats préliminaires soient prometteurs.

L’autre élément qui a récemment fait les nouvelles était le consensus d’experts canadiens sur le VIH et la transmission dans le contexte du droit criminel au Canada. Ces experts font appel aux tribunaux afin qu’ils tiennent compte de la science actuelle afin de mieux comprendre et interpréter la transmission du VIH et ses conséquences sur la santé d’une personne, celles-ci ayant évoluées. Selon eux, les interprétations basées sur des informations incomplètes ou périmées mènent à des injustices. Cette  situation doit être réglée le plus rapidement possible.

Conclusion

Le Consensus québécois, comme le suggère mon titre, est un guide servant à aider les couples sérodifférents à réduire les risques de transmission du VIH entre eux, en consultation avec leur médecin. Si le couple souhaite ne pas utiliser de condom comme moyen de protection, ce guide présente les différents éléments de suivi médical et de dépistage pouvant  les aider à la prise de décision commune afin d’éviter la transmission.

Pour moi, le Consensus québécois est un important pas en avant. Il s’agit d’un énoncé officiel basé sur toutes les preuves scientifiques disponibles stipulant les conditions selon lesquelles un couple peut mettre en place des stratégies de prévention qui conviennent à leur situation, que celles-ci incluent ou non le condom. Les structures de la santé publique sont, de par nature, réticentes à s’adonner à des interprétations libérales et permissives quant à l’appréciation du risque. En  d’autres mots, elles sont conservatrices et ne peuvent pas se permettre les mêmes sorties qu’un chercheur peut faire dans l’interprétation de résultats de recherche préliminaires ou celles d’un groupe d’experts débattant entre eux.

Souhaitons maintenant que les autres questions trouvent des réponses positives, basées sur d’autres études tout aussi concluantes. Le Consensus québécois est le pas en avant qui me fait croire que nos structures de santé publique continueront de reconnaître la validité des nouvelles données et s’engageront à les intégrer dans notre compréhension « officielle » du VIH et sa transmission. Vive la méthode scientifique!

Je suis [toujours] seropositif!

Vous vous souvenez peut-être de la campagne « Je suis séropositif » de la Coalition des organismes communautaires de lutte contre le sida. La première édition de cette campagne a été lancée fin novembre 2012 avec cinq porte-paroles courageux. Cette communauté d’affirmation est en plein croissance, avec de nouveaux participants prêts à se tenir debout et dire au monde « Je suis ici, je suis séropositif et je suis une personne à part entière, avec des plans, des rêves et des expériences à partager avec vous. » La deuxième édition de la campagne est sortie cette année, avec deux nouvelles vidéos en novembre et trois autres vidéos en février. Je suis heureux de vous dire que je figure dans le groupe de cette année, donc j’ai pensé vous montrer la campagne à nouveau et vous raconter mes raisons de participer.

Le principe est simple : les gens sont beaucoup moins apte à craindre ou à ignorer d’autres personnes quand ils les perçoivent comme des vraies personnes. Communiquer son humanité dans une courte vidéo d’environ deux minutes est tout un défi, mais c’est au moins un début, quelques pas sur le chemin vers la familiarité.

Au cours de la première année, il y avait beaucoup d’incertitudes : quelles réactions pouvions-nous attendre du public? Les porte-paroles, feraient-ils face à des situations négatives? Des questions trop personnelles? En effet, toutes les inquiétudes qui arrivent quand on pense à divulguer son statut sérologique à une nouvelle personne. Et tout comme le déroulement de ce processus individuel, le processus virtuel de divulgation via la campagne a mené à la compassion, l’encouragement et le respect.

Donc, pourquoi ma participation? J’ai créé ce blogue à la fin de 2006 parce que je tiens à l’approche de la campagne actuelle. Il serait impossible pour quelqu’un qui me connaît de me craindre ou de m’haïr (évidemment je suis convaincu de mon amabilité!). Nous avons tous témoigné la réussite de cette approche avec les communautés LGBT — quand les membres de cette communauté sortent du placard en nombre, il devient plus difficile de les traiter de moindre. Oui, il reste des progrès à réaliser pour cette communauté aussi, mais l’élément incontournable est la familiarité.

C’est une chance que la campagne ne dépend pas de la surprise, parce que je suis depuis pas mal de temps relativement ouvert avec mon statut de séropositivité. Cependant, je me trouve assez régulièrement dans des situations où je divulgue pour une première fois à quelqu’un, avec tout ce que ça continue à entraîner. Il y a quelques années, j’ai fait une entrevue télévisée au cours de ma participation à Ça Marche (notre marche annuelle de lutte contre le VIH/sida au Québec). Un couple de jours plus tard, ma voisine qui a emménagé à notre adresse quelques jours avant moi il y a vingt ans m’a dit qu’elle a vu l’entrevue et nous avons discuté de ma santé devant l’escalier en avant. Sa santé aussi. Tout le monde aime parler de ses réalités et trouver les parallèles dans les vies des autres.

Bien que ma séropositivité a une certaine notoriété — on peut le lire sur l’en-tête de ce blogue! — je voulais prendre ce pas additionnel en solidarité avec ceux et celles qui sont allés devant moi et avec tout le monde qui pourrait bénéficier d’un peu plus de familiarité du grand public en lien avec le VIH. Est-ce que j’ai réussi?

The English version of this article is published here.

Lakmé: Beauty for Eyes and Ears

What a lovely way to start the opera season in Montréal! I had fabulous company and we happened to be there on the day underscoring the 50th anniversary of Place des Arts, with shows in every performance space that evening. If we needed yet another reason to love this city, it was delivered by the realization that we were sitting in the middle of a space that 50 years ago was considered an iffy choice for an arts complex but that today is bubbling with cultural life in all of its spaces, in neighbouring sites and out onto the streets around it.

The other thing we got to see on the way in was the participation of an Indo-Canadian cultural group, present and giving a lovely air of authenticity to an opera set in colonial India. They lined the way into the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier in resplendent saris set off by lovely genuine smiles. This was an excellent move on the part of the Opéra de Montréal.

This production is beautiful. From the curtain that greeted us as we took our seats to every costume and set detail, it felt rich and luscious and more than a little bit exotic. That, of course, was only the beginning.



You might be familiar with this duet, here drawn from a performance elsewhere in concert format. I remember it from an Air Canada commercial, I believe [UPDATE: totally wrong! It was British Airways!], which sounds terribly cheap, but should be credited with making opera a little more familiar and accessible, just as Bugs Bunny did on a couple of occasions.

Sopranos Audrey Luna and Emmar Char (Ms. Char is from the Altelier lyrique of the Opéra de Montréal!) sang it with such beautiful clear voices that I never wanted it to stop. At each point later in the opera where there were bits of the song heard in the distance, I just wanted it to come back to centre stage and go on and on.

The Bell Song (Air des clochettes) came in the second act and I have again drawn the video from a concert elsewhere. Let me say that Audrey Luna really did this beautiful song justice. What an amazing voice! The song contains little parts that reminded me of sections of the Queen of the Night aria — here she is singing the bells — but I found this song much more pleasant and less jarring in its transitions. So delighted to have heard it here with this soprano first.



The story (I do like to go on about the stories) is appropriately tragic. The little party of British interlopers who despoil the sacred place in the forest by treading in it, the man who stays behind to sketch Lakmé’s jewelry (an authentic colonialist would probably just have scooped it up and sketched at home!) and falls in love with her and her voice’s beauty. It cannot be, of course, and Lakmé’s father sets out to identify the man responsible for the despoiling of the sacred place who also dared to gaze upon his daughter.

The plot plays out, and our Gérald is stabbed in a crowd. We think he is done, but since when has anyone died quickly in an opera? Lakmé and her manservant Hadji rescue him and Lakmé nurses him back to health in the forest. He awakens and it seems like they will find their love and live happily ever after. But no, we are again reminded that this is opera. Gérald’s fellow soldier Frédéric finds him while Lakmé is away from the shelter getting water from a sacred well, the drinking of which from the same ivory cup will cement their love. Gérald is reminded of his duty to the army and his British fiancée and when Lakmé returns she can see the change on his face.

Her lover slipping away, if not yet physically, Lakmé eats a poisonous flower before they drink from the cup. They drink, and she weakens, even as she protects him from her father by informing him that they are committed to each other through the drinking from the cup. Lakmé dies, and rather suddenly for an opera, I must say!

The audience at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier applauded long and hard, but we mostly saved our standing ovation for Audrey Luna. It’s very impressive to see an entire room leap to its feet to pay tribute to a star, and for the crowd to hold back until her arrival on stage was no slight to the rest of the cast, but a recognition of her amazing talent.

A great start for the season.

L’homme à tout faire

It was a nice way to end the Festival Montréal Complètement Cirque for us, with the multi-talented David Dimitri and his show L’homme cirque (the Circus Man). The guy has very good comedic timing and interacts well with the crowd, especially the kids but without forgetting about the adults.

The show itself ran through a lot of disciplines — or simulations of disciplines — including trick riding (the horse was on wheels), the teeterboard (weight falling on one end propels the acrobat skyward), tightrope walking, musical instrument-playing (accordion AND trumpet!) and being shot out of a cannon, with a healthy dose of clowning throughout. You can only imagine what came out the other end of the “horse” when he tweaked its ear! To keep the image of the man who does it all on his own, he made frequent trips to a little control box to press a button to start the music for the next segment.

I might have been entertained by the content of the show, but I was even more amused by the interactions with the crowd. He shot a couple of glances at the crying baby to the right of us (her poor parents ended up leaving of their own volition when she wouldn’t stop crying), but he also had another girl come out to feed imaginary oats to the “horse” and enlisted (or tried to enlist) a series of people to pass him a rope. The first gentleman missed his outstretched hand, the second, a little shy boy, just sat and stared at him and finally the little girl further over succeeded. He then shot a derisive glance at the man who had failed, much to our amusement. He also went back to the shy boy once or twice, to get the same inert response.

After shooting himself out of the cannon he attempted a clever move to toss his slipper into the cannon behind him and missed! The “Awwww!” of the crowd was met with a challenge to come out and try it. Shy boy? No response. Another boy shouted out “Me!” and was invited out to try. He got it on the second attempt and the crowd went wild.

The grand finale was a tightrope walk that took him through a “door” in the roof of the tent and all the way over to a tower outside. He whipped out a camera when he got to the tower and waved us all into position so that we could be the background of his selfie. Very entertaining.

This video of the act is from another event, but it was the best choice to give you a good idea of the variety of the show:

Doigts Croisés

Back on track! What a lovely and refreshing experience we had at the Circus tonight! Croisé is the result of the workshop on research and creation offered by the National Circus School to its graduates. The creator of the piece and the artists who brought it to the stage for the first time in October 2012 — now known collectively as Cirque Céans — are running with it in the context of the Festival Montréal Complètement Cirque. We are very glad they are!

This show also had a “soft start”…players on stage and doing things as we arrived to take our seats. We might have been nervous after the experience of the day before, but there is something reassuring about a stark and spare stage when you are expecting people to take up space there doing athletic/artistic things all over it. Maybe I have a very conventional perspective on avant-garde when I read that into a spare, black set. I just find it comforting.

Everything we look for in a circus was there. Maybe not a whole lot of danger, but I think I need to flesh out my circus requirements list beyond “danger” and “beauty” to include athleticism, grace, whimsy and humour. Needless to say, a whole lot of creativity goes into tying all of those elements together.

Some of the creativity that we look for is innovation in the use of the standard equipment, or the use of non-standard equipment in the course of the show. This show had those things in spades: seatless high chairs that became little cages, a tippable freestanding doorway that served as a bar for various acrobatics, more seatless chairs as replacements for aerial rings. One of my favourites: long metal poles that looked like giant pick-up sticks and served as delimiters of space, stepping stones and uneven bars for yet more acrobatics.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the juggling of rings and then balls in very entertaining forms. The guy juggling the rings had a couple of misses, but recovered very well indeed, which I always appreciate. The ball juggler was simply brilliant, and it certainly didn’t hurt that he is quite beautiful and a lovely dancer too.

Most of all, let me heap my last bits of praise on the interactions between the artists (totally NOT a disjointed series of solos here) and the connections that wove the various portions of the show together. We didn’t interrupt the show with smatterings of applause for one spectacular feat or another, but it was because they were so well integrated that it didn’t seem appropriate to applaud one thing as the other was already underway. That lack of interruption also made for a smoother show.

The video only shows a tiny part of Croisé, and one of the slower, dancier parts. A shame about the festival music that is all over all the videos, as it doesn’t let you get a good sense of the atmosphere of the show itself, but it’s what we have, so here it is!



If we arrived with our fingers crossed that the show would be a good one, we left with our hands stinging a bit from the applause we offered at the end. Oh, and smiles on our faces. Beautiful.