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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Businessman nervous about opera debut with WSO tonight
Marcel Desautels
MARCEL A. Desautels would sing as a boy soprano in the St. Boniface Basilica for the sheer joy of singing.
Singing at The Hollow Mug when he was a little older, that was different: "It paid -- I was in law school," Desautels recalled Monday.
Tonight, he fulfils a lifetime dream by performing opera with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra at the Centennial Concert Hall.
Desautels is an enormously successful businessman and one of Canada's leading philanthropists. Among his many gifts was $20 million to the University of Manitoba for the Marcel A. Desautels Faculty of Music.
At one point, he said, he was almost tempted to enter into one of those lotteries that offered the chance to perform as a prize. But then, an "invitation came out of the blue" from Alexander Mickelthwate, the WSO music director.
Desautels has performed at the music faculty and at homecoming concerts, but never before 2,000 people in such august surroundings.
"I sang later on, as my voice changed, as a soloist at midnight mass, weddings, funerals," but he has no regrets about going into law instead of hitting the road to try to develop a music career.
"It's Boston Pops-style" tonight, Desautels said.
"I'll be performing Vesti la Giubba from Pagliacci. It's a dramatic song; it's a play within a play. It's supposed to make the audience laugh, but he's crying."
For a second, lighter piece -- this is, after all, a summer solstice concert -- he'll sing Dein Ist Mein Ganzes Herz by Franz Lehar, who's better known for works such as The Merry Widow, Desautels said.
He'll be decked out in a black tie and tails to perform.
And yes, he'll be nervous.
"You're always nervous," he said while rehearsing at the music faculty. "You'd better be nervous; it keeps the adrenalin flowing."
Desautels said work is progressing well on the 500-seat concert hall and performing atrium, key pieces in the transformation of U of M's music faculty.
Desautels said he is confident the five-year process just getting underway to reduce U of M's 20 faculties to about 13 will not affect music, and it will remain a separate faculty.
"This faculty is really starting to predominate in Canada," he said. "This will be a really big deal when it opens in the fall of 2014."
Of course, there will be a concert for the official opening, and of course, Desautels will perform.
"I'm booked."
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 19, 2012 A2
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