Roland Gosselin

Gosselin, Roland

Roland Gosselin. Bass, teacher, b Quebec City 1 Aug 1926; BES (Quebec Ministry of Education) 1970, M MUS (Sherbrooke) 1970, performance diploma (Sherbrooke) 1971. He was a member of the Petite Maîtrise Notre-Dame (Petits chanteurs de la Maîtrise de Québec), where he took lessons in Gregorian chant 1936-40 with Father Joseph De Smet. He studied opera repertoire 1946-51 with Isa Jeynevald-Mercier at the Institut d'art vocal.

Gosselin spent 1952-5 in France, where he sang in more than 300 performances at the Opéra de Lyon, appearing with Régine Crespin, Jacques Jansen, Raoul Jobin, Mady Mesplé, and Mado Robin. His roles included Sparafucile in Rigoletto, Méphistophélès in Faust, the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, Count Des Grieux in Manon, and Nourabad in Les Pêcheurs de perles. He toured France,.Belgium and Italy.

Returning to Canada in 1955, Gosselin sang in recitals and concerts and performed 1967-9 in productions of La Bohème (Colline), The Barber of Seville (Don Basilio), Tosca (Angelotti), and Werther (le Bailli) by the Théâtre lyrique du Québec. During this period he toured France in 1958 for the JM. At the École Vincent-d'Indy he studied voice 1969-71 with Louise André and Bernard Diamant. He sang in Stravinsky's Renard in 1970 at the NAC and made his debut at the Opéra du Québec as Marco in Gianni Schicchi (1971). With the Quebec Symphony Orchestra he was a soloist in Messiah.

Gosselin taught introductory music courses 1970-7 at the Louis-Philippe Paré polytechnical school in Châteauguay, near Montreal, and organized concerts 1977-80 at the cultural centre there. After a tour for the JMC in France, Gossselin sang in Roméo et Juliette (1980) and The Tales of Hoffmann (1981) with the Société Lyrique d'Aubigny, and in Macbeth (1983), La Traviata (1984), Rigoletto (1984) and Salome (1985) with the Opéra de Montréal. In 1983 he performed in Wolfgang Rihm's opera Jacob Lenz, produced in Montreal, Quebec City, and Toronto by the SMCQ and the Goethe Institut. In 1985, with the pianist Monik Grenier, whom he married the next year, he toured in the Montreal maisons de la culture, performing works based on texts by Victor Hugo, in commemoration of the centenary of his death. He also sang on CBC where he performed in Lavallée's TIQ on the program 'Suite Canadienne' (1990). In 1979, he recorded Dubois' Sept Paroles du Christ with the Choeur de Laval, issued on SNE 504.