Real-life love story meets heartbreaking opera

Heartbreak onstage, eternal love in life Quebec baritone Etienne Bupuis and Australian soprano Nicole Car met on set of Eugene Onegin in Berlin in 2015. They're married and coming to Montreal in mid-Sept.

Quebecois baritone Etienne Dupuis and Australian soprano Nicole Car will break hearts in the Russian opera Eugene Onegin this month, while the couple's real-life love story will mend them.

Etienne made his name with L'Opera de Montreal in lead roles in productions such as Dead Man Walking and Another Brick in the Wall.

His talent has taken him around the world, and it was when he was singing the lead in Berlin in 2015 in Eugene Onegin that he met Car, and fell in love.

"The morning after, we asked him how it had gone, and he said 'I sang so well, the audience loved me! They loved me! I've never heard applause like that in my life,'" said Car with a smile. "I was like, 'oh this guy has an ego on him. Okay.'"

"I was just saying it the way it was," said Dupuis with a laugh.

The two are now married with a young son, and are reprising their roles as Eugene Onegin and Tatiana in the great Russian opera.

"We realized very early on that not only were we very well-matched on stage, but definitely in life," said Car.

The couple has already performed La Boheme together at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and Don Giovanni at the Opera in Paris, where they live.

They only accept contracts that allow them to perform together while their son Noah can wait in the wings.

"Our careers are wonderful and we're so lucky to do what we do, but, at the end of the day, we have a beautiful family unit, and we want to keep that intact. We want to see our son as much as possible," said Car.

The opera about unrequited love and bloody sorrow, Eugene Onegin, begins mid-September at Place des Arts.