JOSEPH QUESNEL (1749-1809), a French merchant, composer, playwright and poet, settled in Boucherville, Quebec, near Montreal, in 1788. A year later he co-founded a performing ensemble in Montreal called the Théâtre de Société. His operas Colas et Colinette and Lucas et Cécile are among the first operas written in North America. These are his only works to have survived, along with numerous poems, although he is thought to have written songs, duos, motets, quartets and symphonies.