Green Opera Production

Encouraging audiences to use soft mobility:

We implement methods to support our audience's soft mobility (through the development of the mobility offering with several partnerships and raising awareness of more environmentally friendly transport methods).  

Adapting business and artists' transport methods: 

Planes are still a transport method that is frequently used - and very polluting - in the opera sector. Our action priorities are as follows:

• Using video conferences instead of physical travel and developing suitable tools
• Taking the train instead of the plane to certain destinations
• Recruiting locally for additional artists (extras, dancers and actors)
• Encouraging artists not to take on engagements that require long journeys during production

Eco-design for sets, costumes and accessories:

We prioritise standard structures and items from our stock as far as possible in putting together our productions. This is a basic principle that we are attempting to develop by initiating a dialogue with the artistic teams and other opera houses.  In this respect, all our rehearsal sets are 'zero expense' sets whose materials come exclusively from our stock. 

In terms of recycling and reusing our productions, there are various initiatives. La Monnaie co-founded the InLimbo platform , a project subsidised by the Brussels-Capital Region, which enables the exchange of materials within the socio-cultural sector. During the 2019-20 season, the total volume of transactions on InLimbo was 48 tonnes of materials of which 6.6 tonnes were donated by La Monnaie to various socio-cultural charities. The types of materials that we have already donated are wooden panels, textiles, lamps, aluminium frame, paint pots, furniture, etc. 

Currently, we are experimenting with new recycling and reuse models for our finished productions. For example, we carried out a project to recycle set parts that were eco-designed for the production of Foxie! The Cunning Little Vixen, directed by Christophe Coppens in 2017, with our Brussels partner Rotor.