About

This unforgettable performance comes to Toronto for one night only after sold out stops in New York, Kigali, Lviv, Sydney, London, Berlin, and many more.

How do two people at the extremes of good and evil find solace in the same aria? East West Street, based on the award-winning book by human rights lawyer Phillipe Sands, blends the glorious voice of Metropolitan Opera star Laurent Naouri, the music of Bach, Rachmaninoff, Leonard Cohen and more performed by Guillaume de Chassy, with spellbinding narration by Sands and the French soprano Natalie Dessay.

Generously supported by The Ouellette Family Foundation.

Featuring:

Having grown up listening to Schubert and Miles Davis, Guilllame de Chassy is a self-taught improviser and composer, immersed in both Jazz and classical music. He has created a unique poetic musical identity that defies classification.

de Chassy has played and recorded all over the world with some of the finest jazz musicians including Paul Motian, Mark Murphy, Andy Sheppard, Enrico Rava, Paolo Fresu.  In contrast, he has collaborated with top French classical musicians including: pianist Brigitte Engerer, Opera singer Laurent Naouri and choir director Joel Suhubiette (for whom he composed a Jazz Cantata), and he recently wrote and recorded his first Piano Concerto.  Guillaume de Chassy has also worked closely with british actress Kristin Scott Thomas, French filmmaker Antoine Carlier and with Spanish flamenco dancer Ana Yerno.

Natalie Dessay is a highly acclaimed French soprano and actress. Best known for her exceptional vocal range and acting abilities, she dominated major opera stages worldwide with roles such as Zerbinetta, Queen of the Night, Lucia de Lammermoor or Traviata before transitioning into theater and concert work.

Recently she has sung the parts of Mrs Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd in Strasbourg and Rose in Jule Styne’s Gypsy in Paris

Future plans include Sally in Stephen Sondheim’s Follies and the Old Lady in Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Candide’

Laurent Naouri studied at the CNIPAL in Marseille and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. His broad repertory includes about forty roles, from the early baroque to contemporary opera. 

Recently, he has sung the role of Ruprecht in Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel and Mamma Agata (Viva la Mammà) at the Opéra de Lyon, the parts of the Four Vilains (The Tales of Hoffmann), Pandolfe (Cendrillon) and The Grand Prêtre (Samson et Dalila) at the Met, Germont (Traviata) at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Mamma Agata (Viva la Mammà) at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande) in Helsinki in the revival of the Katie Mitchell’s production, Sharpless (Madama Butterfly), Four Vilains (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), King Ignace (Yvonne de Bourgogne) at the Paris National Opera, Scarpia (Tosca) in Brussels, Don Alfonso (Cosi fan Tutte) at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.

He will sing Tomsky (the Queen of Spades) in Brussels, The Directeur de Théâtre (les Mamelles de Tiresias) at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Marquis de La Force (Dialogues des Carmélites) and Pandolfe (Cendrillon) at the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Upcoming roles include Le père Laurence in Romeo et Juliette, Teatro Real Madrid, and Adams in The Death of Klinghoffer in Teatro del Maggio.

Gideon Zelermyer has served as cantor of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal since 2004 — a congregation founded in 1846 that has kept a professional choir since 1887 and remains one of the few in the world whose services are led each week by cantor and male choir.

A lyric tenor admired for the warmth and purity of his line, he trained for the opera house and the synagogue alike, studying voice at The George Washington University with Dr. Robert Baker and cantorial art at the Tel Aviv Cantorial Institute under Naftali Herstik, Chief Cantor of the Jerusalem Great Synagogue. His cantorial singing is deeply influenced by his love and deep knowledge of opera, which he has shared since 2020 in his online series A Night @ the Opera.

He was cantorial soloist on Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker, which received the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance and the 2017 JUNO Award for Album of the Year.

His recordings include the Music of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim series and two contemporary classical albums, recently Art Choral Vol. 10: Hallelujah with Ensemble ArtChoral. He has conceived and presented ten large-scale Shaar Hashomayim concert productions, sung three world premieres, and appeared with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under Kent Nagano and at the United Nations General Assembly. He has lectured at Harvard Divinity School, UCLA, Queen’s, Rochester and McGill.

He sings the national anthems for the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre and the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.

East West Street

A profound, important book, a moving personal detective story and an uncovering of secret pasts, set in Europe’s center, the city of bright colors—Lviv, Ukraine, dividing east from west, north from south, in what had been the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A book that explores the development of the world-changing legal concepts of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” that came about as a result of the unprecedented atrocities of Hitler’s Third Reich. It is also a spellbinding family memoir, as the author traces the mysterious story of his grandfather as he maneuvered through Europe in the face of Nazi atrocities. This is “a monumental achievement ...

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Published by Penguin Random House Canada

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Philippe Sands

Philippe Sands is professor of law at the University of London, the Samuel Pisar Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, and the author of East West Street. He is a frequent commentator on CNN and the BBC World Service, and a litigator before international courts.

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