Biography
Canadian baritone OLIVIER LAQUERRE is a laureate of the Paris and the Verviers (Belgium) international voice competitions, and has been in great demand as a soloist since winning the Joseph-Rouleau Award (First Prize) at the Jeunesses musicales voice competition.
In concert, he regularly sings Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Magnificat and St.Matthew Passion, as well as Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Mr Laquerre has sung with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, the Quebec, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Milwaukee symphony orchestras, and many vocal ensembles from North America. He is a regular guest soloist at the Boston Early Music Festival, with whom he has recorded many CD’s under the CPO label (Germany).
On stage, his roles include Escamillo in Carmen, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Arbace in Mozart’s Idomeneo, Achillas in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Pluto in Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Ottone in Monteverdi’s L’ Incoronazione di Poppea, Oronte in Charpentier’s Médée, both Céphée and Méduse in Lully’s Persée, Andrei Shchelkalov in Boris Godunov, Haly in L’Italiana in Algeri, Angelotti in Tosca and the Messenger in Stravinsky’s Œdipus Rex. He was an acclaimed Ulysses in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse Opera Atelier in Toronto, under David Fallis. Olivier Laquerre also created the role of Tsar Theodorus at the Boston Early Music Festival premiere of Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow.
His many recent and upcoming projects with Opera Atelier in Toronto and the Boston Early Music Festival include Mozart’s Idomeneo, Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni (Toronto), de Lalande’s Les Fontaines de Versailles, Campra’s Le Carnaval de Venise (Boston), Charpentier’s Les Plaisirs de Versailles, La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs (Boston).