Opera House of the Year

Even Gerard Mortier only seldom managed to stage a season in Brussels as diverse as that of 2010/11: in addition to the premiere of Toshio Hosokawa’s Matsukaze (staged by Sasha Waltz), La Monnaie triumphed with a brilliant rehabilitation of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots, Andrea Breth made her first ever foray into the world of Janácek, and Romeo Castellucci envisioned Parsifal as an opera of extremes. They were working with premier-league conductors such as Hartmut Haenchen and Marc Minkowski. The casts were invariably selected with care to complement the style of the opera and the requirements of the stage. The most important factor, however, was teamwork, which was implemented following long-term planning. There is no doubt that with Peter de Caluwe at the helm, the Théâtre de la Monnaie has reached a pinnacle both of contemporary opera and of its own history (which at its best has been impressive indeed). For this reason it has been crowned “Opera House of the Year”, the first time that the award has been given to an institution in a non-German-speaking country.

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A good opera house is distinguished by the fact that, among other things, it occasionally surpasses itself in moving beyond the realms of possibility – when, at some point during the seven weeks of rehearsals (or sometimes not until the actual performances), a catalytic reaction takes place whereby the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts and transforms an evening at the opera into a true Gesamtkunstwerk. La Monnaie staged a production of this quality only a few months ago; the enthusiastically celebrated performances of Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots were nothing less than the artistic version of nuclear fusion, forming the culmination to a season which already boasted a proliferation of highlights.

Looking at this production in greater detail is the best way of understanding what makes the Brussels opera house so special, particularly when bearing in mind that Meyerbeer’s work is actually one of the greatest challenges facing an opera company today. By contrast with the Ring cycle or Die Frau ohne Schatten, Les Huguenots requires a cast which can master what are in some cases horrendously difficult roles, but also demands a style and staging which can do justice to a complex piece of opera lasting five hours. In that respect, this production, which forms the climax of Peter de Caluwe’s fourth season as general director in Brussels, is certainly no lucky fluke. It is the result of long-term preparations, astute decision-making in the appointments of directors, conductors, and singers, and the creation of an atmosphere where art can flourish – all factors which make La Monnaie the “Opera House of the Year”.

Caluwe’s predecessors Gerard Mortier and Bernard Foccroulle have fostered the ideal conditions: La Monnaie is one of the few companies to have consistently engaged in the process of operatic self-renewal over the last twenty years. Not a year has gone by during this time in which Brussels has not achieved at least one, if not two productions which raise the bar. The fact that there is still very little talk of a “Mortier era”, let alone no sign of regret that it came to a close, is a sure sign that this continuity has also been discerned in Brussels. And justifiably so, for while the various general directors have certainly displayed individual preferences, one aspect has remained unchanged: since Mortier’s time in charge, La Monnaie has sought to generate a constructive tension between the two main strands of European theatrical tradition, the German and the French. La Monnaie’s recipe for success blends reliably tasteful opulence and sensual theatre à la française with the cognitive approach of German avant-garde Regietheater. The names with which it has been associated in the past such as Karl-Ernst and Ursula Herrman, Luc Bondy, Christof Loy and Vincent Boussard have now given way to Stefan Herheim, Andrea Breth, Krzystof Warlikowski and Olivier Py under de Caluwe’s management. Yet the opera house has also worked with the Catalan theatre group La Fura dels Baus und regularly engages fine artists to collaborate on productions. The Chinese artist Zhang Huan, for instance, was involved with Handel’s Semele in 2009, the Indian artist Anish Kapor worked on Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande in 2008, and the Italian Romeo Castellucci on Parsifal in the past season. This tremendous degree of plurality applies to the music, too. No later than during Bernard Foccroulle’s incumbency, La Monnaie had become one of those houses which enjoy the greatest success with ensembles and conductors playing historically informed performances. Whether with René Jacobs and the Freiburger Barockorchester or Christophe Rousset and his Talens Lyriques – let us take for example Jacobs’ Mozart productions or more recently Rousset’s direction of Cherubini’s Medée – La Monnaie frequently took that one step beyond their customary repertoire.

And this takes us to our second key point, namely a sense for which piece is ideally suited to which performers. The last few seasons have provided ample evidence that Peter de Caluwe possesses an instinct as strong as that of his predecessors. There is the decision – which seems bold at first glance – to entrust Ligeti’s turbulent Grand Macabre to a group like La Fura dels Baus, who have hitherto primarily been known for their visually powerful but generally static work. Or there is the last production of the 2009/10 season, Macbeth, with the Polish director Krzystof Warlikowski wielding the baton, which was voted “Production of the Year 2010” by critics in Opernwelt. This was one of those artistic nuclear fusions where the staging and the music, the singing and acting all flowed together flawlessly, and the opera house did indeed surpass itself by moving beyond what is possible.

Yet surpassing itself does mean admitting that, by international standards, the conditions at La Monnaie are less than ideal for performing great opera. With its 1150 seats and a budget of 43 million euros, a forty-strong choir and an orchestra of ninety-three musicians, the company can hardly be compared with the “big players” on the European operatic scene. The historical building lacks both a side stage and a large substage, a factor that seriously restricts the staging options. And of course, on those occasions when the orchestra has not been stirred into action by exceptional conductors it has suffered from an audible lack of leadership over a period of two years.

Yet Peter de Caluwe has mostly been able to compensate for these potential weaknesses with clever casting, such as his appointment of Hartmut Haenchen to conduct Parsifal or Marc Minkowski for Les Huguenots. Here are two maestri who – like the works themselves – musically reflect the polarity mentioned above between German profundity and French sophistication. In this respect, too, the previous season can be regarded as a striking implementation of La Monnaie’s long-term strategy.

The second premiere of the season, Janácek’s Kát’a Kabanová, illustrates how a team can be selected which emphasises the strengths of all participants while also challenging them in a most unaccustomed manner. As a theatrical opera, Kát’a was certainly a reasonable work for Andrea Breth to take on, but in this, her first Janácek production, she was forced to deal with a whole new and strange tribe of characters. That description is even more apposite for the title role – who could have guessed that Evelyn Herlitzius would produce such an intense yet controlled Kát’a after all those years as a hochdramatische soprano? That she would present Janácek’s heroine as an anti-Brünnhilde, a woman whose emotional energy cannot break free and is instead directed against herself?

Of course such decisions are risky, but one of the main reasons Brussels has earned the title “Opera House of the Year” is that it has dared to take those risks. The decision to hand an opera like Parsifal over to a fine artist and a theatre director is undoubtedly the most obvious example, but the repertoire itself reveals that La Monnaie is expecting a lot of its audiences: two premieres, Boesmans’ Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy and Toshio Hosokawa’s Matsukaze, flanked by performances of Hosokawa’s Hanjo and the sadly cancelled Intolleranza project. How many companies would dare to stage so many modern works, especially given the fact that the three heavyweights in the repertoire, Kát’a, Parsifal and Huguenots are anything but archetypal crowd pullers? Pointing out that this stagione house satisfies the public’s incessant appetite for Verdi, Puccini and Mozart either with older productions (a Bohème from Berlin’s Komische Oper and an in-house Finta) or with concert performances (Nabucco) is by no means a criticism; given limited resources it is probably the only option. After all, not even the “Opera House of the Year” can surpass itself every day.

Jörg Königsdorf, 2011