Édouard Woolley was an accomplished musician, tenor, actor, composer, and music educator. Born in 1916 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he began his music education there, studying vocals, acting, German repertoire, and piano and harmony. He eventually worked as a choirmaster in his hometown, until he moved to Montréal in 1938, at the age of 22. He immediately began studying singing under Salvator Issaurel until 1944, which he followed by entering the Conservatoire de musique de Montreal, where he earned a Doctor of Music in 1947.

He made his professional opera debut in 1942 as Antoin in Reynaldo Hahn’s Ciboulette at Les Variétés lyriques in Montreal. Following his debut, he became a principal artist there and spent five seasons with them until 1947. It was in that same year that he opened his own private voice studio, which he ran for several decades. On top of all that, he performed as a singer and actor on a variety of CBC Radio and CBC Television shows, as well as appearing in supporting roles on the stage and in Canadian films, starting in the 1940s through to the 1960s.

Even when he wasn’t performing he was still contributing to the arts in any way he could. In 1948 he founded the Opéra national du Québec and served as the company’s first artistic director. The company’s goal was to allow opera students in Quebec to sing in important centres. Despite it being a public success, they had to close in 1952 due to financial reasons. Using his previous knowledge of teaching, he taught art history at the Cégep du Vieux Montréal from 1967 until his retirement in 1981. He passed away 22 December 1991 in Miami at 75 years old.