LA MONNAIE / DE MUNT

A sense of style, an eye for detail and, above all, many hours of monk's work: that is what it took our Workshops to produce the opulent costumes, hats and accessories of Les Huguenots. Catch a glimpse of these magnificent creations.

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. 

Whoever said 'Rome wasn't built in a day' must have worked in the opera industry. Constructing the set for Les Huguenots is nothing less than a titanic work. Let our Head of Stage Marcel Maus treat you to a look behind the scenes, where his team not only puts up the set, but also makes it move in perfect unison with the music.

A constant certainty for every French grand opéra: its impressive ballet scenes! Les Huguenots is - fortunately - no exception. Follow our dancers and choreographer Daniel Izzo as they prepare their contemporary choreography with a poetic-macabre touch.

Les Huguenots is the story of an impossible love affair between a Catholic woman and a Protestant man against the backdrop of the French religious wars of the 16th century, with the infamous St Bartholomew’s Day massacre as its lowest point. Read the synopsis of the opera here.

“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.

In anticipation of 'Pinocchio', a team from La Monnaie followed the Belgian composer Philippe Boesmans for more than a year. Together, they took a look at his extraordinary career, from the very beginning in his home town, Tongeren, to the rehearsals for 'Pinocchio' in Aix-en-Provence.

In this video portrait, made on the occasion of Philippe Boesmans' 80th birthday, you will learn everything about the life of this Belgian composer through interviews, excerpts from his operas and documentary footage.

"In my career, this is one of the projects that I have learned the most from." Meet The Woman! Mezzo-soprano Albane Carrère is almost ready to transform into the enigmatic leading lady in Is this the End?#2.

These days he is a two-time winner of Opernwelt’s award for ‘Opera Director of the Year’, but for the longest time, it didn’t look like Romeo Castellucci would tackle the art form at all. Until 2011, when La Monnaie invited him to work on Richard Wagner’s Parsifal. What followed is operatic history. In this video portrait, the director reveals his artistic credo and returns to his previous stagings at La Monnaie.

This April, La Monnaie will present the world premiere of Here's the Woman!, the second part of the opera trilogy Is this the End?. In order to explore this new creation in depth, we invited its three creators to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Discover here what they have in store for you with this new production!