The idea for Harold Nobens chamber opera À l'extrême bord du monde sprouted during his residency at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. Curious to see how things fanned out, we followed the Belgian composer and his mentor Benoît Mernier during their sessions with the singers- and musicians-in-residence at the Chapel.
The Queen Elisabeth Competition is one of the world’s most prestigious musical competitions. It also represents a huge logistical challenge. On the occasion of this 2023 edition dedicated to the Voice, we looked into the practical issues raised by the participation of the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra in the competition …
It’s now or never
21 May is the moment: that is when mezzo soprano Lotte Verstaen and soprano Margaux de Valensart will join 53 other young singers from around the world, in the first round of the prestigious Queen Elisabeth competition. Since 2015, Belgium’s hopefuls for this edition have been connected to La Monnaie, as members of the MM Academy.
Henry VIII has little to do with the Renaissance, but everything with the hot topics of Saint-Saëns' time." And these are still relevant today, according to director Olivier Py. In this video, he shines his light on our new production of this grand opéra.
“Without dancing, there would be no eros and thanatos, and without these two, there would be no nineteenth-century opera”. Director Olivier Py has a penchant for dance, and during the interval of his new production of Henry VIII, you can even admire ballet on the Place de la Monnaie! Today, we tend to think of opera and ballet as two different art forms, but a dip into Western music history reveals that they have been sharing the stage for centuries - perhaps even from the very dawn of opera as an art form.
