The year 1923 saw the presentation of excerpts from the opera Jean-Marie, a comic opera in four acts. Two performances were conducted in Quebec City on April 10 and 11 of 1923.

The program and fifteen musical scores are kept in the family archives.

The local press, Le Soleil and L'Action catholique, reported that this work was 'richly harmonized' and 'of a surprising truth and originality,' and was well received. The libretto was the result of close collaboration with Alfred Rousseau, and the performances were under the direction of F.-X. Mercier.

The family archives contain the scores for tenors, baritones, basses, and soprano, along with the scores for the piano, double bass, violin, clarinet, F horns, and the oboe.

The most famous work of J. U. Voyer was the opera L'Intendant Bigot. It was performed five times. Two performances were held in Montreal on February 5 and 7 of 1929 at the theatre house Monument National, under the musical direction of Albert Roberval. Three additional performances were presented in Quebec City on March 22 and 23 of 1929 at the Auditorium de Quebec, which is now the Capitol Theatre, under the musical direction of Edmond Trudel and with the patronage of the Honorable L.-A. David.

Initially, the opera was to be presented only in Montreal. Following the success in Montreal, plans were made for one performance in Quebec City. In the end, three performances were presented at the Auditorium de Qu�bec, with almost the same cast of renowned artists who had performed in Montreal: Arnold Becker in the title role, Louis Gravel, Paul Trottier, C. E. Brodeur, Marie-Rose Descarries, and Caro Lamoureux.

The three manuscripts of orchestrated music and a piano-voice reduction are bound and preserved in the family archives. Many scores of the opera, with the first act occurring on the heights of the city of Beauport, near Quebec City, are included in these manuscripts. Also included: double bass, cello, violins, clarinet, bassoon, cornet, horns, oboe, trombone, viola, and flute. Many copies of the libretto, created in collaboration with Alfred Rousseau, and copies of the program for the performances, both in Montreal and Quebec City, are also kept in the archives.

More than fifty newspaper articles reported the event, including Montreal's La Presse and Quebec City's Le Soleil and L'�v�nement, etc.

The opera was presented by the Soci�t� canadienne d'op�rette, who produced and presented it as the first Canadian grand opera. In a letter that he sent to the composer and that was later reprinted in the program, Honor� Vaillancourt, writing in the name of the Soci�t� as its director general, stated that Ulric Voyer was 'the first Canadian to produce a lyrical work with the scenes created in the form of an opera.' The Encyclopedia of Canadian Music, published in 1993, mentioned the work without considering the opera L'Intendant Bigot as the first Canadian opera.

An unpublished work kept in the family archives is Mademoiselle de Lanaudi�re, a comic opera in three acts and four scenes.

There are two bound manuscripts consisting of 685 hand-written pages of orchestra music, composed in collaboration with G.E. Lefebvre, that are kept in the archives. Also kept is the piano-voice reduction of this work, the proofs of the libretto, and 36 scores: tenor, baritone, bass and soprano's; clarinet, cornet, violin, flute, bassoon, trombone, double bass, cello, horn, and oboe.

This work was written in collaboration with Henri Deyglun, author of the libretto, and slated for performance. Forward movement was halted due to the untimely death of the composer, Ulric Voyer. The project was very close to completion, as indicated by the handwritten memorandum that indicated: 'the income of each performer for their participation at the presentation of Mademoiselle de Lanaudi�re, under the musical direction of Mercier-Gingras.' M. Athanase Guy signed a contractual agreement in Quebec City on October 20, 1931. This agreement stipulated that the main character was to be played by Marthe Lapointe, the role of Salaberry, by Antonio Lamontagne, and artistic direction by Jean Riddez. A document signed on June 4, 1932 by G. E. Lefebvre asserted that he verified the quality and accuracy of the orchestration.

While the opera L'Intendant Bigot recalled France's abandonment of French Canada, Madame de Lanaudi�re expressed the relationship between the two halves of Canada. As Madame de Lanaudi�re states, 'We are good neighbors. We visit each other, and neither English nor French avoids the other, because from our good relations will rise a powerful nation.'

Alice B�dard

Ulric Voyer had every possible occupation in order to support his wife and eighteen children. He was a self-taught musician, piano instructor, clerk for the Municipal Court of Quebec City, first organist of the Saint-Fran�ois d'Assise Church, shorthand instructor, playwright, and the manager of publicity for J.B. Renaud.

In 1913, he married Alice B�dard, and they had eighteen children during twenty-one years of marriage, although three of the children died at an early age. As soon as the others were old enough, they were introduced to the world of music: Madeleine learned signing, Gaston learned the clarinet and oboe, Fran�oise learned the piano, and Gemma learned the violin.

Many musicians and friends regularly stopped by the house to play music and talk about music: Edmond Trudel, the orchestra conductor who led the opera L'Intendant Bigot in Quebec City, F.-X. Mercier, the orchestra conductor who led the presentation of excerpts from the opera Jean-Marie, G.-E. Lefebvre, another orchestra director and the head of the Cercle Philharmonique Haydn who later revised the opera Mademoiselle de Lanaudi�re, Jean Riddez of the Op�ra de Paris. The librettist Henri Deyglun of the Soci�t� des auteurs dramatiques de Paris, and the radio broadcaster Alfred Rousseau, who wrote the libretto of the opera Jean-Marie, the opera L'Intendant Bigot, and the livret of the comic opera Coup d'soleil by Omer L�tourneau and Honor� Vaillancourt of the Soci�t� canadienne d'op�rette and so many other.

How many other singers and musicians from Quebec City knew Ulric Voyer? There were some evenings during the early thirties when there seemed to be a concert being held on 13th Street in Quebec City. The priests of the Coll�ge de Saint-Fran�ois d'Assise would gather together with the rest of the neighborhood in the schoolyard to listen. On those evenings, they could hear the sounds emanating from the magnificent piano that was the pride of Ulric Voyer and that had once belonged to Joseph V�zina, the late composer and orchestra conductor.

Ulric Voyer was active in broadcasting circles: he co-founded the radio station, CHRC, with Narcisse Thivierge, and he was the musical director of the station in 1931, and continued in that post until his death. Once a month, he hosted a one-hour live broadcast of comic opera or a classical work.

He was so in love with music that in 1913 he wrote that he had decided to dedicate his life to music. But that was not an easy task in Quebec at that time. Ulric was only able to devote his spare time to his musical passion for composing operas, in spite of ill health that caused him to blackout, and heart problems evident even in his youth.

Tragic and untimely death

Ulric Voyer, composer, died at the age of 42 on January 8, 1935.

As a head writer from the Quebec City newspaper Le Soleil reported, using the assumed name of L'oncle Gaspar, 'The death of Ulric Voyer created an easily understood commotion throughout the city. Everyone, he wrote, was his friend. Someone always stopped him on the street to discuss music. And many others were accustomed to stopping him to discuss business because, having been one of the most highly thought of employees at the Maison J.-B. Renaud for twenty years, people valued his opinion and knowledge. But his passion was for music, and he always regretted that he was unable to dedicate his entire life in pursuit of that passion.'