Biography
Canadian soprano Sarah Dufresne has been praised for her “style and elegance” (Bachtrack) and for the “richness of tone, some angelic high notes and admirable control” (The Arts Desk).
Highlights of her 2025/26 season include her Vancouver Opera debut as Gilda in Rigoletto, her role debut as the Woodbird in Siegfried at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and her house debut at Teatro alla Scala as Frasquita in Carmen. On the concert stage, she will make her debut with Les Violons du Roy, sing the Fauré Requiem with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, return to the London Symphony Orchestra to perform Suor Genovieffa in Suor Angelica at the BBC Proms, and make her debut at the Tiroler Festspiele as Lisa in Bellini’s La sonnambula.
In the 2024/25 season, she appeared as Ophélie in Thomas’s Hamlet with Opéra de Montréal, Gilda in Rigoletto with Pacific Opera Victoria, and Semele in Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae with the Bayerische Staatsoper. She also performed Orff’s Carmina Burana at Festival de Lanaudière with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, all to great critical acclaim. This season also marked the release of her debut album, Quatre chansons de jeunesse (Debussy), and her featured performances on Malcolm Martineau’s The Complete Songs of Ravel.
The 2023/2024 season included concert debuts with both the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Toledo Symphony, as well as in both Cadogan and Wigmore Halls as an associate artist of The Mozartists. She finished her two-year residency with Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Program, appearing on stage at Covent Garden in Bizet’s Carmen (Frasquita), Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore (Giannetta), and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (Dew Fairy), all to much critical acclaim. To close out her season, she appeared as the High Priestess in Verdi’s Aida under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Orchestre Métropolitain at the Festival de Lanaudière.
Sarah debuted on the stage of Covent Garden as Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Lucia (The Rape of Lucretia), Der Hirt (Tannhäuser), Voce dal Cielo (Don Carlo), Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro), and Tusnelda (Arminio). She had the great pleasure of working under the batons of Joana Mallwitz, Bertrand de Billy, Maxim Emelyanychev, and Sebastian Weigle, and the direction of Sir David McVicar, Oliver Mears, and Tim Albery. Additonally, the summer of 2023 saw Sarah’s debut with Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal for Orff’s Carmina Burana with Rafael Payare.
From 2020-2022 Sarah was a member of l’Atelier lyrique at l’Opéra de Montréal. Sarah appeared on the mainstage at Place des Arts as Nora in Opéra de Montréal’s season opening production of Vaughn-William’s Riders to the Sea. In June of 2022, Sarah placed second in the Aria Division of the prestigious Concours Musical International de Montréal, garnering praise for her “tremendous dramatic presence,” and “astonishing clarity and vocal dexterity” [Opera Canada].
Other repertoire includes Tytania (Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Mrs. Fiorentino (Kurt Weill’s Street Scene), Galatea (Handel’s Acis and Galatea), and Servilia in (Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito). Recently, in collaboration with Against the Grain Theater and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Sarah premiered the role of Rebecca Marshall in their production of Nicole Lizée’s No One’s Safe, a conceptual and immersive murder mystery opera.
Biography
Nicolas Ellis is Artistic Director and Conductor of the Orchestre de l’Agora in Montreal and Music Director of the Orchestre National de Bretagne. Since 2023, he is also the Principal Guest Conductor of Les Violons du Roy.
He currently stands out as one of the most active conductors on the Canadian musical scene, as well as for his artistic and social commitment within the Montreal community. Known for his versatility in a vast repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to contemporary music, Nicolas also distinguishes himself as a thoughtful programmer with a concern for the dramaturgical line that unites the works programmed. In recent years, he has acted as assistant conductor to Raphaël Pichon and his Ensemble Pygmalion in opera productions at the Opéra comique and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and has also held the position of Artistic Collaborator to the Orchestre Métropolitain and Yannick Nézet-Séguin from 2018 to 2023.
As a guest conductor, Nicolas has conducted the Vancouver Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the I Musici de Montréal Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. More recently, he has appeared with the Graz Opera and the San Diego Symphony and the 2024-2025 season will take him to conduct in Finland, Germany, Luxembourg and France.
In 2023, he won a JUNO award in the Classical Album of the Year – large ensemble category, with the Orchestre de l’Agora and violist Marina Thibeault for the album Viola Borealis. Agora also won the Prix Opus for Musical Event of the Year for its Gala de la Terre featuring Mahler’s 3rd Symphony. At the heart of Agora’s mission, Nicolas has set up projects with teenagers struggling with mental health problems, educational workshops and a series of monthly concerts at the Bordeaux Prison in Montreal.
Nicolas Ellis is the recipient of the 2017 Fernand Lindsay Career Grant and was also awarded the Prix Goyer Mécénat Musica 2021.
Biography
Les Violons du Roy takes its name from the celebrated court orchestra of the French kings. It was founded in 1984 by Bernard Labadie to explore the repertoire of music for chamber orchestra in performances matched as closely as possible to the period of each work’s composition. Its minimum fifteen-member complement plays modern instruments, albeit with period bows for Baroque and Classical music, and its interpretations are deeply informed by the latest research on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance practice. The repertoire of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries receives similar attention and figures regularly on the orchestra’s programs.
Les Violons du Roy has been a focal point of Québec City’s musical life since it was founded in 1984, and in 1997 it reached out to enrich the cultural landscape of Montréal as well. In 2007, the orchestra moved into its permanent home base in Québec City’s Palais Montcalm while continuing to build on the worldwide reputation it has acquired in countless concerts and recordings carried by medici.tv, Radio-Canada, CBC, and NPR along with regular appearances on the festival circuit. Les Violons du Roy has performed dozens of times throughout Canada as well as in Germany, the U.K., Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, Colombia, Ecuador, South Korea, Spain, the United States, France, Israel, Morocco, Mexico, Norway, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Switzerland, in collaboration with such world-renowned soloists as Magdalena Kožená, David Daniels, Vivica Genaux, Alexandre Tharaud, Ian Bostridge, Emmanuel Pahud, Stephanie Blythe, Marc-André Hamelin, Philippe Jaroussky, Anthony Marwood, Isabelle Faust, Julia Lezhneva, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Avi Avital, Inon Barnatan, and Miloš. The orchestra has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie and iconic venues in London, Paris, and Brussels, with two performances on invitation at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Since Les Violons du Roy’s first trip to Washington, D.C., in 1995, its U.S. travels have been enriched with numerous and regular stops in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Its eleven appearances at Carnegie Hall include five with La Chapelle de Québec featuring the Messiah, the Christmas Oratorio, and the St. John Passion under Bernard Labadie. Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles has hosted the orchestra three times, once with La Chapelle de Québec in the Messiah, again under Bernard Labadie. Les Violons du Roy is represented by Opus 3 Artists and Askonas Holt.
The 40 recordings released thus far by Les Violons du Roy have been met with widespread critical acclaim. The twelve released on the Dorian label include Mozart’s Requiem with La Chapelle de Québec (Juno Award 2002) and of Handel’s Apollo e Dafne with soprano Karina Gauvin (Juno Award 2000). Since 2004, 14 recordings have appeared through a partnership between Les Violons du Roy and Quebec’s ATMA label, including Water Music (Félix Award 2008), and Piazzolla (Juno Award 2006). Further recordings on Erato, Naïve, Hyperion, Analekta, and Decca Gold include Vivica Genaux, Truls Mørk, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Alexandre Tharaud, Marc-André Hamelin, Valérie Milot, Anthony Roth Costanzo (Grammy Award 2019 nomination) and Charles Richard-Hamelin (Juno Award 2020 nomination).
