Following the death of soprano Jodie Devos (June 2024), her family and friends took the initiative to establish a fund that supports 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 make its work known, the Jodie Devos Fund organized a gala concert on November 29 with an impressive selection of singers. Nearly all of them had performed on stage with Jodie Devos, and they ensured a deeply felt performance in which the memory of their colleague came to life. The program was carefully curated with fragments that provided a varied sample of the repertoire in which Jodie Devos excelled and in which she could have continued to shine in the future as her voice and acting talent evolved.
Even though they were always individual arias, duets and ensembles, the empathy was so strong that you experienced the full context and emotional impact of the opera! Conductor Guillaume Tourniaire deserves credit for consistently inspiring the orchestra to create the right atmosphere. The beautiful voices were each intensely invested in the character they portrayed, just as Jodie Devos would have been! Thus Patrizia Ciofi embodied Ophélie, a role that Jodie Devos performed as pure as could be with her silky soprano voice alongside the excellent Hamlet of Lionel Lhote.
Stars such as Reinoud Van Mechelen and Sabine Devieilhe were present in yet another showstopper that was on Jodie Devos's repertoire: Lakmé by Leo Delibes. Nicole Car sang the role of Amelia Morro ma prima in grazia chillingly in the poignant duet with Renato (Etienne Dupuis) from Verdi's Un Ballo in maschera. These are just a few examples of an extensive panorama. Fittingly, the concert ended with the ensemble from the finale of 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 remembrance of the singer than Libiam ne' lieti calici from Verdi's La Traviata. The enthusiastic audience was able to leave the theater with a blissful smile.
The record label Alpha released an album with 7 CDs (Alpha 1191) with all recordings of Jodie Devos – the proceeds of this also go to the Jodie Devos Fund.