LA MONNAIE / DE MUNT

Despite the second wave of coronavirus infections and the corresponding tightening of sanitary measures, our teams have kept up the hard work behind the scenes in recent weeks to ensure a return to the Theatre in optimal conditions. General director - Intendant Peter de Caluwe guides you through our renewed programming for the second half of the season.

Even during a pseudo-lockdown and in the wake of a whole series of cancellations, the upholsterers, carpenters, sculptors, painters, and other artists in our Workshops remain undaunted. And that tenacity is really needed – for, paradoxical as it might seem, there have never been so many productions on the stocks at the same time. Right now, work is going ahead – COVID-securely – on scenery for no fewer than seven operas.

Twelve dancers, backlit in an orange hue reminiscent of a glowing cinders, succumb to one of the monuments of American minimal music. An uninterrupted dance that is seamlessly passed on, body to body, its rousing pulse almost trance-like. Drumming, based on the eponymous composition by Steve Reich, is without a doubt a key work in the Rosas repertoire. In this interview, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker herself explains how she tackled the choreography.

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.

A new decade got under way just a little while ago. That sort of ten-year milestone may seem arbitrary, but it is already clear that we face major changes in the near future. If recent years are anything to go by, we can expect a turbulent period in both politics and society, in the context of an ultra-rapidly changing world. That kind of climate forces us to move with the times. We must not, we cannot, sidestep the burning issues in society today.

‘One of the singular artists of her generation’ (The New York Times); ‘a lavishly gifted soprano’ (The New Yorker); ‘This Is Who We’ve Been Waiting For’ (Peter Sellars). For anyone still in doubt: she has the Big Apple lying at her feet. And now Belgium too. A conversation with Julia Bullock, the driving force behind Zauberland.

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.

Whatever politicians may be claiming, nobody is better suited to embody “the voice of the people” than our Choir. From partying peasants to wide-awake soldiers, from experienced sailors to loyal servants: no challenge too great for our choristers. In the Trilogia Mozart Da Ponte, for once, they can just be themselves: Brusseleirs in this present day and age. In a two-part documentary we follow them in their preparations for our Mozartian triptych.

‘Love makes us great, but tears greater still…’ This season, we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Jacques Offenbach with a new production of his musical will and testament, Les Contes d’Hoffmann. The fantastic tale, the musical archaeology of the score, and the staging choices: they all take you on fascinating but winding roads. Follow the guide!

No clear-cut reprise, but not a complete rewrite either: Zeitigung might be the most original example of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s ever continuing search for new approaches to the Rosas repertoire. Ten years after the premiere of Zeitung, the choreographer starts off with the same musical building blocks – an anthology of two centuries of German classical music, now performed live by pianist Alain Franco – but she also invited dancer-choreographer Louis Nam Le Van Ho to bring his own flavour to the source material. A conversation with the three creators, in between the folds of a never-ending creative process.

Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher (Joan of Arc at the Stake) marks the return of Romeo Castellucci to La Monnaie. A year after his radical new reading of Die Zauberflöte, the Italian director cum metteur en scène cum lighting and costume designer is turning his attention to Arthur Honegger’s extraordinary ‘oratorio dramatique’. This urgent piece of musical modernism tells the life story of France’s national heroine in eleven scenes, but then in reverse: from her death sentence to her youthful calling. We follow the approach of Honegger and his librettist Paul Claudel, and in our turn present this production in eleven retrogressive steps .