LA MONNAIE / DE MUNT

Oh how we looked forward to her role debut as Countess in our production of Pikovaya Dama! A couple of months after she was forced to cease rehearsals in Brussels, Anne Sofie von Otter found a way to sing for the La Monnaie audience after all. Enjoy this performance of the folk tune “Vindarna sucka uti skogarna” from her own backyard, and let the Swedish opera royalty drift you into the summer holidays.

The Covid pandemic was a major blow to our current cultural year, with many of our productions having to be postponed to a later season. The artists who were meant to perform at La Monnaie did not forget our audience, though. Canadian mezzo Michèle Losier, who was set to perform the role of Octavian, here performs the very first sung words from Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss, as well as the Prière by Charles Gounod.

In The Time of Our Singing, the US writer Richard Powers describes how, against the backdrop of post-war segregation in his country, a racially mixed family is both united and pulled apart by music. The novel inspired Kris Defoort for his magnum opus. Just a few months before the world premiere, we discuss this La Monnaie commission with the composer and his librettist Peter van Kraaij.

A fantasy-thriller about the psychological toll of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. A hypnotic mix of electronic and Middle-Eastern sonorities. The enchanting lyricism of sung Hebrew. The Sleeping Thousand is Israeli composer Adam Maor’s remarkable debut on the international opera scene.

“The most interesting are the things that are hidden underneath.” Director Mariusz Treliński reads a psychological neo-noir drama in Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die tote Stadt. We let director, stage designer, conductor and leading soprano Marlis Petersen guide us through this story about a man lost in his own past.

“Each time I finish working on a Wagner opera, my first question is: ‘when can I start again?’” Our Music Director Alain Altinoglu has been entranced by the Meister von Bayreuth for several years. This time, he is getting ready to work on the composer’s final and most enigmatic opera. The musical mystery play Parsifal was the opera debut for Romeo Castellucci. Ten years later he is confronting his own electrifying production.

“After having relentlessly massacred so many heroes and heroines, I have at last the right to laugh a little," Verdi commented on his comical swan song. Chief-conductor Alain Altinoglu explains how the gags in Falstaff are not limited to what is seen on stage. Director Laurent Pelly, meanwhile, mixes bitter and sweet into a well-balanced Verdian cocktail. As if he himself were a bartender in the Osteria della Giarrettiera.

The outside world knows her as a renowned harpsichordist, but Donna Anna’s self-assured facade hides a complex personality. This is especially clear in the way she deals with the opposite sex. Her father, the Commendatore, Don Giovanni or her tender husband Don Ottavio: each of the men in this opera provokes feelings that are both extreme and ambiguous. Soprano Simona Šaturová tells us all about her character in Don Giovanni.

He’s the owner of a newspaper stand who seems to know everyone. A gender-fluid street philosopher who breaks societal norms just by being himself. A manipulative intruder who pulls the strings of all the characters in Così fan tutti. In our Trilogia Mozart Da Ponte, Don Alfonso – portrayed by baritone Riccardo Novaro – is all that… and so much more. 

Nothing escapes her eagle eye. She is the puppet master in control of every situation. Mozart depicts Susanna – a female servant – as the most quick-witted character in Le nozze di Figaro. She’s been through enough to comprehend the true intentions of Il Conte di Almaviva. Now all she needs to do is get the Contessa onboard the #metoo-movement.

Trilogia Mozart Da Ponte is set in Brussels in the year 2020. The French creative arts company Clarac-Deloeuil > le lab is using Mozart to kick the ‘here and now’ into overdrive by making maximum use of video technology. In parallel to rehearsals for the three operas, the company also mobilized a full film crew and, with all the singers from the cast in tow, made its way to twenty-three surprising locations in Brussels. We went along to the set to talk to le lab directors Olivier Deloeuil and Jean-Philippe Clarac.

It can be quite challenging to get hold of a conductor in the final stretch before an opera premiere, let alone when he’s conducting three productions at the same time. We did however manage to talk to Antonello Manacorda, who will guide our orchestra through the Trilogia Mozart Da Ponte, about the musical genius from Salzburg.