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.
An overwhelming mass spectacle that keeps you glued to your seat for five hours with its historical tableaux, ballets, choral scenes, musical inventiveness, and intense drama and romance: Les Huguenots is, without a doubt, one of the greatest blockbusters in the entire history of opera. In 2011, La Monnaie helped its revival with a successful production that you can now rediscover.
In Mystery Sonatas / for Rosa, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker plunges into the mysterious Rosary Sonatas by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. A brave choice — as the cycle is rarely, if ever, performed in full.
“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.
From the scene with the seductive flower girls in the garden of the sorcerer Klingsor to the heavenly voices in the mighty finale: Parsifal offers the ladies of our Chorus music that is as beautiful as it is difficult to sing. We followed soprano Annelies Kerstens and guest chorus master Johannes Knecht during the preparations.
