World City Guide

Culture

Quebec City’s cultural scene runs the gamut from the high aspects of opera and symphony to intimate boites à chansons, with their Celtic-tinged Québécois folk music. While there is some experimental theatre – boosted by local son Robert Lepage – much of the theatre tends towards the mainstream, with larger performances often consisting of light-hearted musicals, such as Starmania and Notre-Dame de Paris, both by local son Luc Plamondon. Films are primarily in French but there are usually at least a couple of screens showing English-language flicks at any given time. The best way for visitors to appreciate the culture, however, is during one of the large festivals, in which almost the whole city seems to become involved.

Québec Sur Scène (website: www.surscene.qc.ca) has information on dance, theatre, classical music and other shows. Listings can also be found in the free alternative weekly, Voir (website: www.voir.ca), the weekly English-language newspaper, the Québec Chronicle Telegraph, or the French dailies, Le Soleil (website: www.cyberpresse.ca/soleil) and Journal de Québec (website: www.journaldequebec.com). The free tourist publications, Québec Scope and Voilà Québec, are also helpful, as is the online Télégraphe de Québec (website: www.telegraphe.com).

Tickets for many events are available from Réseau Billetech (website: www.billetech.com) and Admission (tel: (800) 361 4595; website: www.admission.com), as well as the venues themselves.

Music: The city’s main symphony orchestra, the century-old Orchestre symphonique de Québec (tel: (418) 643 8486; website: www.osq.qc.ca), performs at Quebec City’s most prestigious venue, Le Grand Théâtre de Québec, 269 boulevard René-Lévesque East (website: www.grandtheatre.qc.ca). The Grand Théâtre is also the home of the Opéra de Québec (tel: (418) 529 4142; website: www.operadequebec.qc.ca) and features performances by visiting soloists and orchestras organised by the Club Musical de Québec (tel: (418) 527 6378; fax: (418) 687 4225; website: www.cqm.qc.ca/repert.html) music society. The chamber orchestra, Les Violons du Roy (tel: (418) 692 3026; fax: (418) 692 2078; e-mail: info@violonsduroy.com; website: www.violonsduroy.com), performs at the Palais Montcalm, Place D’Youville, when they take a break from their hectic touring schedule.

Many of Quebec City’s churches provide a wonderful ambience for classical concerts – Chalmers-Wesley United Church, 78 rue Ste-Ursule, has organ concerts on Sunday at 1800 during the summer, while the chapel in the Musée de l’Amérique française, 2 Côte de la Fabrique (tel: (418) 692 2843; fax: (418) 646 9705; website: www.mcq.org), has daytime concerts. The Salle Albert-Rousseau, 2410 chemin Ste-Foy (tel: (418) 659 6710 or (877) 659 6710; website: www.sallealbertrousseau.com), also hosts a variety of performances.

In summer, music moves out of doors, with classical concerts at the Kiosque Edwin-Bélanger bandstand (tel: (418) 648 4050) on the Plains of Abraham, as well as occasional concerts at the open-air Agora, in the Old Port. Further afield, Domaine Forget (tel: (418) 452 3535 or (888) 336 7438; website: www.domaineforget.com), 140km (87 miles) east of Quebec City in Ste-Irénée (near La Malbaie in Charlevoix), is renowned for its summer concert series.

Theatre: The Grand Théâtre de Québec, 269 boulevard René-Lévesque East (website: www.grandtheatre.qc.ca), hosts some of the city’s larger theatrical productions, in addition to concerts. The resident company is the three-decade old Le Théâtre du Trident (tel: (418) 643 5873; website: www.letrident.com), which performs modern French works and translations of American and European plays. Le Capitole de Québec, 972 rue St-Jean (tel: (418) 694 4444 or (800) 261 9903; website: www.lecapitole.com), has dinner theatre performances and a smaller cabaret venue that features comedy and musical acts. Théâtre de la Bordée, 315 rue St-Joseph (tel: (418) 694 9631; website: www.bordee.qc.ca), has a contemporary and often cutting-edge programme.

Dance: There are no major permanent dance companies in the city. La Rotonde, 310 boulevard Langelier (tel: (418) 649 5013; website: www.larotonde.qc.ca), produces shows by touring and local contemporary dance companies, although only some of these performances take place at the venue itself.

Film: Most films are screened in French, although at the beginning of a film’s run the original English version (v.o.a.) may be available in the suburban multiplexes, especially in Ste-Foy. Cineplex Odeon Ste-Foy, 1200 Boul DuPlessis (tel: (418) 871 1550) shows mainstream and arthouse movies. The main repertory house, Cinéma le Clap, 2360 chemin Ste-Foy (tel: (418) 650 2527; website: www.clap.qc.ca), also has arthouse and occasional English-language offerings. The weekly Voir (website: www.voir.ca) is the best source for listings (French only).

The 1991 film Robe Noire (Black Robe) captured the life of 17th-century New France, with a young Jesuit priest departing early Quebec City with his Algonquin guides to visit a remote mission. Filming took place near La Baie, a two-and-a-half-hour drive away. The set has been converted into a tourist attraction – Site de la Nouvelle-France, du Vieux chemin, Saint-Félix-d’Otis (tel: (418) 544 8027; website: www.royaume.com/nouvelle-france).

Le Confessional (1995), directed by renowned theatre director Robert Lepage, jumps back and forth between present day Quebec City and 1952, during the time that Alfred Hitchcock filmed I Confess (released in 1953).

Cultural events: Three festivals dominate the Quebec City calendar, including the Carnaval de Québec (tel: (418) 626 3716 or (866) 422 7628; website: www.carnaval.qc.ca), famous for its mascot, Bonhomme Carnaval. The two-week winter carnival has long been a boozy favourite – necessary to ward off the February cold, of course – although organisers are trying to change the focus to a more family-orientated atmosphere. All sorts of winter activities from building ice castles to tobogganing and ice skating are on offer.

In early July, the 11-day Festival d’Eté (Summer Festival) transforms the whole of the city centre into a stage, with a full schedule of over 500 concerts including classical music, opera, Québécois rock and techno sets (tel: (418) 529 5200 or (888) 992 5200; website: www.infofestival.com). The following month, Les Fêtes de la Nouvelle-France (tel: (418) 694 3311 or (866) 391 3383; website: www.nouvellefrance.qc.ca) takes participants back to the 17th and 18th centuries, before the British conquest. Visitors from around the province dress in period costume to partake in events in Lower Town, whose perfect setting is enlivened by open-air markets, entertainers and typical activities of the period.

Throughout 2003, the Centenary of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec – OSQ (website: www.osq.qc.ca), will include special concerts performed at various venues around the city.

The city is looking forward to one of the biggest cultural events, which is set to take place in 2008, with the Quebec City’s 400th Anniversary (website: www.quebec2008.com).

Literary Notes
Other than journals of the early explorers, such as Samuel de Champlain, the first literature out of Quebec City was François-Xavier Garneau’s Histoire du Canada (1845–48). The life and habits of late 18th-century Québécois were captured in Philippe Aubert de Gaspé’s Les Anciens Canadiens (1863), a name that is now used by the restaurant that occupies the 1677 Maison Jacquet, 34 rue St-Louis, where he lived. Anne Hébert, the novelist and poet born in Ste-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier, a village west of the city, wrote Kamouraska (1974), based on a real-life love-triangle and murder in the 1840s, in the eponymous town on the south shore of the St Lawrence, east of Quebec City. Jacques Poulin, known for The ‘Jimmy’ Trilogy of novels (1967–70) studied at Université Laval, as did Antonine Maillet, whose Pélagie-la Charette (1979) won the Prix Goncourt, France’s top literary prize. Gabrielle Roy, author of The Tin Flute (1945), lived in Quebec City (the main civic library now bears her name), while the poet, playwright and musician, Félix Leclerc, lived on nearby Ile d’Orléans.