Following the death of soprano Jodie Devos (June 2024), her family and friends took the initiative to establish a fund supporting talented young artists in the opera world. Jodie Devos was barely 35 years old, and the Belgian music world lost not only a gifted singer who brought her art to the stage with great passion, but also a charming and charismatic young woman.
To raise awareness for its mission, the Jodie Devos Fund organized a gala concert on November 29 featuring an impressive selection of male and female singers. Nearly all of them had performed on stage with Jodie Devos, and they delivered deeply moving performances that brought memories of their colleague to life. The program was carefully curated with excerpts that provided a rich sampling of the repertoire in which Jodie Devos excelled and could have continued to shine as her voice and acting talent evolved.
Although they were individual arias, duets, and ensemble pieces, the emotional depth was so powerful that you experienced the full context and impact of each opera! Conductor Guillaume Tourniaire deserves credit for flexibly inspiring the orchestra to capture the right atmosphere each time. The beautiful voices fully inhabited every character they portrayed, just as Jodie Devos would have done! Patrizia Ciofi embodied Ophélie, a role that Jodie Devos performed with pure, silky soprano purity alongside the excellent Hamlet of Lionel Lhote.
Stars like Reinoud Van Mechelen and Sabine Devieilhe were among those present in another showcase role from Jodie Devos' repertoire: Delibes' Lakmé. Nicole Car sang hauntingly as Amelia in the moving duet Morro ma prima in grazia with Renato (Etienne Dupuis) from Verdi's Un Ballo in maschera. These are just a few examples from an extensive panorama. The concert fittingly ended with the ensemble finale from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro "Contessa perdono...ah! Tutti contenti." And what encore could have been better chosen to experience the concert not so much as a memorial but above all as a grateful tribute to the singer than "Libiam ne' lieti calici" from Verdi's La Traviata. The enthusiastic audience left the theater with a blissful smile.
The record label Alpha released an album featuring 7 CDs (Alpha 1191) with all recordings of Jodie Devos – the proceeds from this also go to the Jodie Devos Fund.
