Books: A tour de roles Joseph Rouleau, basse: Itineraire artistique.

By Jacques Boucher and Odile Thibault Fondation des Jeunesses Musicales du Canada

This biography of 2004 Opera Canada Award winner Joseph Rouleau is subtitled "an artistic journey," and the book is indeed an impressively expansive and meticulous voyage around the career and life of one of Canada's foremost singers.

The work's co-authors, Jacques Boucher and Odile Thibault, conducted some 50 hours of interviews with bass Rouleau, and snippets of these interviews form the backbone of the book. The authors ably fill in the blanks and give the book its chronological and linear structure. The three basic sections of the book deal with Rouleau's youth, his international career and his return to Canada in 1977. Though some may feel a little awkward with this fusion of autobiography and biography, it does allow the reader to benefit directly from Rouleau's phenomenal memory and gifts as a raconteur. The book also demonstrates how wide-ranging has been his influence outside his continuing singing career. As a lobbyist (founding president of the Mouvement d'action pour l'art lyrique du Quebec, which helped establish L'Opera de Montreal), teacher (at L'Universite du Quebec a Montreal) and administrator (as president of Jeunesses Musicales), the book charts Rouleau's central role in Quebec's and Canada's musical culture.

Some may wish for more context and comment concerning major events during Rouleau's career, such as the disaster of L'Opera du Quebec, but doubtless such elements were outside the book's central biographical scope.

Admirably printed (in French) by the Fondation des Jeunesses Musicales du Canada, this book benefits from a staggering number of photos and illustrations. They not only chart the singer's remarkable career, but also beautifully evoke his personal life, from his youth in Matane and Montreal to his present position as patriarch of the Rouleau clan.