Culture of Montreal
[1] The city is Canada's centre for French-language television productions, radio, theatre, film, multimedia, and print publishing.
As a North American city, Montreal shares many of the cultural features characteristic of the other metropolis on the continent, including representations in all traditional manifestations of high culture, a long-lasting tradition of jazz and rock music, and tentative experimentation in visual arts, theatre, music, and dance.
Yet, being at the confluence of the French and the English traditions, Montreal has developed a unique and distinguished cultural face in the world.
Classical dances, operas, plays, and music performances from troops around the world and from Montreal's very own are scheduled in these halls on a daily basis.
The intelligent and seamless integration of multi-disciplinary arts into the choreography of these troupes helped pave the way for the popularity of the Cirque du Soleil,[citation needed] a multimillion-dollar empire based on a mixture of modern circus and performing acts.
The Place des Arts also harbor the headquarters of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (MSO) that performs in its halls regularly.
Place des Arts are also the home of the Opéra de Montréal, the most prestigious opera company in Montreal.
In the past, the most popular local artists succeeded in filling arenas (Beau Dommage, Offenbach, Cowboys Fringants) or even the Olympic Stadium (e.g., Diane Dufresne), a feat usually reserved to a few international rock stars.
Special events, such as the musical show on the Quebec national holiday, regularly attract over one hundred thousand people.
Every Sunday in Parc Mont-Royal near-downtown Montreal, there is a huge impromptu drumming festival in which hundreds of drummers are invited to jam.
As a result, the most celebrated and internationally recognized Quebec playwrights have all worked in Montreal at some point, including Michel Tremblay (Les Belles Soeurs, Hosanna), who revolutionized Quebec theatre by writing in the local dialect, joual, and Montreal-adoptee Wajdi Mouawad (Wedding Day at the Cromagnons, Scorched).
In 1979, David Fennario achieved notable success and notoriety with Canada's first bilingual play, Balconville, which documents rivalries between the English and French working class in the suburb of Pointe-St-Charles.
Written in 1947, Gabrielle Roy's The Tin Flute (in French Bonheur d'occasion), which chronicles the life of a young woman in the neighborhood of St-Henri, marked Québécois literature for its urban texture.
The work of Mordecai Richler, highlighted by The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959), depicts the lives of poor English-speaking residents of Mile End.
The all-time best-selling novel in Québécois literature, Yves Beauchemin's The Alley Cat (Le Matou), depicts a relatively similar neighborhood twenty years later.
The later work of Émile Ollivier, for example, La Brûlerie, is a portrait of French-speaking immigrants establishing their lives in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood.
Cult MTL is a local print publication and website in Montreal focusing on culture, music, film, arts, and city life.
On the West Island, the Ecomuseum draws many visitors, and features an outdoor setting complete with animals native to the area.
The city is a hub for French-language television productions, radio, theatre, circuses, performing arts, film, multimedia, and print publishing.
The best talents from French Canada and even the French-speaking areas of the United States converge in Montreal and often perceive the city as their cultural capital.
The Montreal Gazette newspaper, McGill University, and the Centaur Theatre are traditional hubs of Anglo culture.
Reflecting their deep-seated colonial roots, the Solitudes were historically strongly entrenched in Montreal, splitting the city geographically at Saint Laurent Boulevard.
Thus, while tensions can occur between Anglophones and Francophones, contemporary Montreal is home to a diverse collection of cultures and people who generally live together amicably.
Nicknamed la ville aux cent clochers ("the city of a hundred belltowers"), Montreal is renowned for its churches.
Jewish contributions include two world-renowned items, Montreal smoked meat sandwiches, and Montreal-style bagels.
This wide variety of cuisines underlines the fact that Montreal is one of the cities in the world with the highest number of restaurants.
During the period of Prohibition in the United States, Montreal became well known as one of North America's "sin cities" with unparalleled nightlife, a reputation it still holds today.
