Pierrette Alarie

Pierrette Alarie

Pierrette Alarie, soprano, teacher (b at Montréal 9 Nov 1921, d at Victoria 10 July 2011). She studied with Jeanne Maubourg, Albert Roberval and Elisabeth Schumann, and in the studio of Salvator Issaurel. In 1945 she won the Met's Auditions of the Air and made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera 8 December 1945. As a soloist, and with her husband Léopold SIMONEAU, she sang on the great European and North American stages and was commended for her crystalline voice and command of the light and lyric repertoire. She and Simoneau received the 1959 PRIX DE MUSIQUE CALIXA-LAVALLÉE and the Diplôme d'honneur from the Canadian Conference of the Arts (1983), and their record of Mozart Concert Arias and Duets won the Grand Prix du disque from the Académie Charles-Cros in Paris in 1961. Among her recorded roles were Léïla in Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de perles and Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. Her farewell concert (with Simoneau) was in Handel's Messiah in Montréal 24 November 1970.

Together she and Simoneau founded the Advanced Training Opera Centre (active 1978-81) and the Canada Opera Piccola (active 1982-88). Alarie was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1967, elevated to Companion in 1996, and became a Chevalière of France's Ordre des arts et des lettres in 1990. McGill University awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1994 and in 2003 she was awarded a Governor General's Performing Arts Award.