The prospect of a Lanaudière summer rich in promises and discoveries, fertile with unique encounters and wonder, presents itself to us once again, as we unveil the Festival's new season, the result of a year-long reflection undertaken for you. The dialogue established with the masterworks of yesterday and of today, through the renewed miracle of interpretation and performance, looks as much to the past, to its imprescriptible lessons, as it aims to reflect a disrupted present, questioning our certainties and forcing us to look at the world as it is. Against the feeling of powerlessness that can arise in the face of the chaos and turmoil of our time, we oppose beauty and fraternity as ultimate values.

This year, and for the second time in their young history, Nicolas Ellis and his Orchestre de l'Agora set the stage for the weeks we spend together, conjuring the primal forces of The Rite of Spring and embedding it in a grand fresco, an ode to nature, to Mother Earth, and to the wonder of life. The Inuit throat singing that precedes the performance of this pagan rite, with its ancestral origins, emanates from our very environment and becomes the narration of a shared memory.

Now an eagerly anticipated and unmissable annual event, the presentation of an opera in concert version by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, this year a preview of the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Macbeth, raises the question of power, the fascination it exerts on the human soul, and the splendors and immeasurable misfortunes that result from it. Verdi, and Shakespeare before him, thus probe a mystery as profound as it is eternal, whose magnetic and irresistible darkness forces us to look into the abyss.

In absolute contrast to the Scottish despot, the figure of the Sun King—an enlightened monarch and humanist patron celebrated as such by the "flourishing arts" gathered around him: Painting, Music, Architecture, Poetry—is the true protagonist of the spectacle William Christie and his troupe are bringing us, for its Canadian premiere. At once a vibrant exhortation to peace, a musical setting of a strikingly relevant text, and a little-known masterpiece from pre-revolutionary France, its benefits are fully ours, bringing us back to an earlier version of ourselves. Through language, theatre, and dance, they guide us towards historical continuity.

Power, as the central theme of our forty-ninth edition, is also embodied in the concerts presented by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. On one hand, with Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, which has become one of Rafael Payare's specialties, its cold colors and sharp textures depicting the monster Joseph Stalin and his tyrannical regime; on the other hand, with A Hero's Life, in which Strauss portrays himself as a self-proclaimed savior-demiurge, a mirror of our fantasies and obsessions. Finally, Les Violons du Roy and Bernard Labadie, ever-faithful, return with a compendium of Mozart's most beautiful female portraits. The Countess, Donna Anna, Vitellia… are the active and decisive protagonists of operas among the greatest masterpieces of the entire repertoire, whose theatrical and human truth transcends centuries. Their creation corresponds to a period of exceptional intellectual and political effervescence in Europe, on the eve of the French Revolution, and resonates with us today in the same way, if not more so than in their time, with historical distance lending them strength and clarity.

We are proud to present concerts featuring world-renowned artists, many of whom are performing here for the first time. This includes pianist Saskia Giorgini and soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, both making their Canadian debuts. Stéphane Denève, Clemens Schuldt, Bruce Liu, Christian Blackshaw, Avi Avital, and Julie Fuchs are also joining the Festival's extended family, to our great delight. Finally, we must mention the return of Matthias Goerne, Veronika Eberle, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Alisa Weilerstein, Charles Richard-Hamelin, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, I Musici de Montréal, and "our own" Marie-Nicole Lemieux, who has been absent from our stages for too long, all of whom complete a list of the most prestigious guests imaginable.

Artists don't just expand the era of their intelligence; their calling aligns with a higher ethical standard. While the points of balance and inflection in our shared lives too often fade, one thing seems clear to me, as stated simply and unequivocally by Albert Camus: anything that degrades culture shortens the paths to servitude. May we together remain clear-sighted and not stray from our path.

Enjoy the Festival!