Francesca Como, Marie-Christine Depestre and Heidi Jutras, who starred in “La Voix”, will shine in the show “Vive nos divas” which returns next July for a sixth edition at the Cogeco Amphitheater in Trois-Rivières.
After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, this Cirque du Soleil Tribute Series production will highlight the female icons of singing from here on a 90-year scale and celebrate all women. Twenty songs have been selected for the show, which will be presented from July 20th to August 20th and will be directed by Lydia Bouchard of the R Révolution programme. The dancer choreographed the first three installments of Vive nos divas alongside then-director Jean-Guy Legault.
“After that I went to stage ‘shows’ of this magnitude in Europe for the Cirque. I’ve never done a “show” like this at home, so it’s something very special for me to finally be able to come back and take the helm of the staging and brainstorming,” said Lydia Bouchard in an interview with the agency QMI.
Two snippets were revealed on Wednesday, when we simultaneously learned the identities of the singers who will shine on stage. So we know we’ll revisit Celine Dion’s I will go where you will go and the late Renée Claude’s The Beginning of a New Time. For the rest, it’s motus and dry mouth, Lydia Bouchard and her collaborator Jean-Phi Goncalves, musical director and arrangements, who want to keep the surprise.
“We’re in the circus, there has to be something naive, poetic, luminous. We don’t do a musical review either,” said Lydia Bouchard, who relies on the fable of a “young woman leading her people on a pilgrimage to natural places in Quebec.”
She says: “We go into everyone’s emotional baggage and collective imagination to give meaning to the words and lyrics. So yeah, the lyrics, what it says, what it conveys, for us it had everything to do with it, we couldn’t ignore it. We’ve been looking quite a bit.”
Selecting the parts is not an easy task. “It’s a nasty headache just picking the songs. And thanks to the pandemic, it’s been several years of thinking. We had to put the lid on the pot,” said Jean-Phi Goncalves, who knows the song structures are likely to change. “I’m trying to create both a connection to the original song and a surprise with the new version. I stretch the rubber band as much as I can without breaking it.”
In total, more than thirty artists, dancers and acrobats will share the stage.
“We tried to respond to all genres, all epochs, all voices so that there is something for everyone, and to write this love letter as openly as possible,” said Lydia Bouchard, speaking of a broad musical spectrum from pop, jazz and country – and indie music.
Tickets are available online [www.amphitheatrecogeco.com].