French operas are not like other operas. Where German and Italian operas feature endless melodrama and tragic heros who die unspeakable deaths, French composers have traditionally preferred lighter plots and happier endings. (Ambroise Thomas even composed an operatic Hamlet in which the title character survives to become King of Denmark.) So it’s no surprise that North American companies, steeped in the Italian and Germanic traditions, have traditionally avoided French opera. But in Quebec, where the two leading opera companies in the province are led by the same man, French conductor Bernard Labadie, a distinctly French flavor is beginning to take hold.