Wilfrid Pelletier
Joseph Louis Wilfrid Pelletier (sometimes spelled Wilfred), CC, CMG (20 June 1896 – 9 April 1982) was a Canadian conductor, pianist, composer, and arts administrator.
As a composer, he produced only a small body of work, most notably In the Dark, in the Dew (published in Boston, 1923) which soprano Maria Jeritza included in a number of her recitals.
Born in Montreal, Pelletier was the son of a baker who in his spare time performed actively as an amateur musician and conducted a community concert band.
[1] The experience of losing his job with the MOC made Pelletier question his potential career opportunities in Canada and he decided that he needed to find a way to go to Europe.
[2] During these early years with the Met he developed a lasting friendship with Arturo Toscanini, who later hired him to conduct his NBC Symphony Orchestra on numerous occasions when he himself was unavailable.
[1] On 4 April 1926, he conducted his first opera at the Met, Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, with Carmela Ponselle as Santuzza and Armand Tokatyan as Turiddu.
[1] His first performance in this title was conducting Deems Taylor's The King's Henchman on the following 29 March with Edward Johnson, Florence Easton, and Lawrence Tibbett starring.
He went on to conduct the house premieres of Benjamin Godard's ballet Reminiscence, Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, Domenico Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto, and Igor Stravinsky's Apollo.
His final and 462nd performance at the Met was on 15 May 1950 conducting Charles Gounod's Faust with Giuseppe Di Stefano in the title role, Nadine Conner as Marguerite, Luben Vichey as Méphistophélès, and Robert Merrill as Valentin.
[1] In 1938 he appeared on camera in Paramount's feature film The Big Broadcast of 1938 as he conducted Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad in Brunhilde's Battle Cry from Richard Wagner's Die Walküre.
[1] While working at the Met in the early 1930s, Pelletier was approached by Canadian industrialist and philanthropist Jean Lallemand to collaborate with him and the Béique and David families of Montreal in establishing a new orchestra in his native city.
During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Canadian composer Claude Champagne had put together a large report on music education that was sponsored by the Quebec government.
The report closely examined music education in Europe as well as in Canada and plans were soon formed to establish a network of state-subsidized school which would be modeled after European conservatories, particularly the Conservatoire de Paris.
[3] Pelletier and Champagne, who was appointed the conservatoire's assistant director, were largely responsible for recruiting a highly impressive international staff of teachers.
"[4] This change considerably freed up Pelletier's schedule and enabled him to accept at offer to become artistic director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec.
