The power of destiny: the late Anne-Marie Fortin

At the beginning of this season, the Infilise Family Foundation contacted the Opéra de Montréal to honour the memory of a loved one, the late Anne-Marie Fortin.

Madame Fortin was the mother of Tony Infilise, who created the Family Foundation with his wife Betty in 2008. Every year, the Foundation supports a host of social and health organisations, including the Tyndale St-Georges Community Centre in Little Burgundy – the very place where Tony and Betty met as children.

In reaching out to the Opéra de Montréal, the Foundation wanted to pay tribute not only to Anne-Marie Fortin's strong social spirit, but also to an emblematic trait of her personality: her great love of opera.

"She was a remarkable, strong woman who, although she wasn't very lucky, had a positive and lasting impact on the lives of many people," says Tony, "She was originally from Lac Saint-Jean. Her father died shortly after she was born and her mother, my grandmother, was forced to leave her in an orphanage. When she was a teenager, she came back to join her mother in Montréal. She began earning a living as a seamstress. Around the age of 20, she met my father. They married, but family responsibilities were short-lived. So she brought me up as a single parent, which was quite unusual at the time.

In addition to economic insecurity, Anne-Marie Fortin had to deal with numerous health problems since the age of 25. Despite all this, Tony has fond memories of a strong, devoted mother, driven by a passion for music and a boundless curiosity for foreign cultures and philosophies. "She was a free thinker", says Tony, "and she taught herself English and Italian. And she practised yoga! That may seem trivial today, but in the 1960s at Sainte-Cunégonde, it was quite avant-garde and quite exceptional.

Madame Fortin's favourite opera was Madama Butterfly – who knows, perhaps because she identified with the protagonist, Cio-Cio-San (who, like Tony's mother, had to bring up her only son alone). On this subject, Tony says: "Opera was, without question, her greatest passion. Opera gave her strength, energy and emotion. Every Saturday afternoon, without exception, music filled the apartment, live from the Metropolitan Opera.

Unfortunately, Madame Fortin never had the pleasure of attending a live opera. She died prematurely in 1970 of pancreatic cancer. Ten days after her death, her daughter-in-law Betty gave birth to her first child, a daughter.

More than 50 years have passed since then. The Infilise family has grown and prospered, and other children have been added who have become parents in their own right. "If we have become what we are today, it's largely thanks to my mother. She had the gift of giving confidence to anyone, whatever the circumstances. She passed that on to Betty and me. It's a trait we recognise in our children too.

On May 12, on the occasion of the fourth performance of La Traviata, the entire Infilise family will be gathered at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier to celebrate the memory of a beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. The late Anne-Marie Fortin, a woman who, like the heroine of Verdi's opera Violetta Valéry, knew how to go beyond her destiny to leave an example – and a love – that is still very much alive.

Opéra de Montréal thanks the Tony & Betty Infilise Foundation for generously sponsoring the participation of Talise Trevigne, lead singer of La Traviata, as well as the initiatives of the Outreach and Education Department, in memory of the late Anne-Marie Fortin.