LA MONNAIE / DE MUNT

On 8 March, the very first opera of the US composer Mark Grey will be created at La Monnaie : Frankenstein. The original novel by Mary Shelley is brought to the stage by La Fura dels Baus in an impressive sci-fi setting. The Catalan collective has previous been invited to La Monnaie for Le Grand Macabre, Œdipe and Un ballo in maschera.

On 17 February, Alain Altinoglu and the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra will perform the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven during the third concert of our Beethoven cycle.

La Monnaie invited the Belgian composer Wim Henderickx to compose an original piece inspired by Beethoven’s work.

His harp concerto ‘… after a soft Silence, an enormous Thunder …’ will be performed for the first time with Agnès Clément as soloist.

“If a piece is long, arduous, violent, sombre and hasn’t been performed for at least one-and-a-half years, they call up Olivier Py.” The French stage director surely sees the humour in it all. Truth is, his intense, timeless productions have been a major contribution to the reappraisal of the French ‘grand opéra’. In this video portrait, Py reveals his artistic credo and looks back on his previous stagings at La Monnaie.

The soprano Véronique Gens is a regular on our stage. She made her debut here as Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) and then performed Iphigénie (Iphigénie en Aulide), Roi Gaële (Alceste), Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito) and, most recently, Madame Lidoine (Dialogues des Carmélites). She is also a passionate interpreter of French mélodie.

La Gioconda is one of those forgotten nineteenth century masterpieces: a grand drama with six leading roles, huge choral parts and a spectacular ballet... La Monnaie brings this all too rarely performed jewel of Italian ‘grande opera’. Not to be missed!

On 6 January, Alain Altinoglu and the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra will perform the Second and Fourth Symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven during the second concert of our Beethoven cycle. La Monnaie invited the Spanish composer Mauricio Sotelo to compose an original piece inspired by Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony. His clarinet concerto L’angelo necessario will be performed for the first time with Antonio Capolupo as soloist.

French director Laurent Pelly is celebrated internationally for his dream-like perspective on the bittersweet opera repertoire. With his unique theatrical vision, he has enchanted La Monnaie audiences on multiple occasions : with Don Quichotte (2010), Cendrillon (2011), The Golden Cockerel (2016) and with Don Pasquale (2018). Before tackling Verdi’s swan song Falstaff in December 2020, the director returns to his previous La Monnaie stagings in this video portrait.

The director Laurent Pelly returns to La Monnaie this December with Don Pasquale. We were able to interview him at the end of the summer, a few days before he left for Philadelphia where he presented a new production of Lucia di Lammermoor in September. A conversation devoted to Donizetti.

‘Don Pasquale’ is the ideal opera for the holiday season. Let our dramaturge Marie Mergeay convince you to come see the show.

Since his first production for La Monnaie, Krzysztof Warlikowski has been invited to Brussels with the regularity of clockwork. In his stagings of Médée (2008), Macbeth (2008), Macbeth (2010) Lulu (2012), Don Giovanni (2014) and From the house of the dead the director has shown an aptitude for discovering untrodden paths. A documentary in search of his artistic credo underlying his art and his work at La Monnaie.

No right-minded person out alone on the street would wish to encounter the characters from From the house of the dead! And yet Janáček has the power to shine a light in the darkest corners of humanity with music that exudes intensity, vulnerability, power and humour. Conductor Michael Boder explains why Janáček’s last opera is so unusual.

The chorus leader of our social programme ‘A bridge between two worlds’ has devoted ten long years to sparking and escalating an enthusiasm for singing in inmates in several Belgian prisons. A conversation with a musical fire accelerant.