LA MONNAIE / DE MUNT

Whatever politicians may be claiming, nobody is better suited to embody “the voice of the people” than our Choir. From partying peasants to wide-awake soldiers, from experienced sailors to loyal servants: no challenge too great for our choristers. In the Trilogia Mozart Da Ponte, for once, they can just be themselves: Brusseleirs in this present day and age. In a two-part documentary we follow them in their preparations for our Mozartian triptych.

‘Love makes us great, but tears greater still…’ This season, we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Jacques Offenbach with a new production of his musical will and testament, Les Contes d’Hoffmann. The fantastic tale, the musical archaeology of the score, and the staging choices: they all take you on fascinating but winding roads. Follow the guide!

No clear-cut reprise, but not a complete rewrite either: Zeitigung might be the most original example of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s ever continuing search for new approaches to the Rosas repertoire. Ten years after the premiere of Zeitung, the choreographer starts off with the same musical building blocks – an anthology of two centuries of German classical music, now performed live by pianist Alain Franco – but she also invited dancer-choreographer Louis Nam Le Van Ho to bring his own flavour to the source material. A conversation with the three creators, in between the folds of a never-ending creative process.

Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher (Joan of Arc at the Stake) marks the return of Romeo Castellucci to La Monnaie. A year after his radical new reading of Die Zauberflöte, the Italian director cum metteur en scène cum lighting and costume designer is turning his attention to Arthur Honegger’s extraordinary ‘oratorio dramatique’. This urgent piece of musical modernism tells the life story of France’s national heroine in eleven scenes, but then in reverse: from her death sentence to her youthful calling. We follow the approach of Honegger and his librettist Paul Claudel, and in our turn present this production in eleven retrogressive steps .

If you ask Pascal Dusapin, he has “seen everything on film relating to Macbeth.” So it is hardly surprising that the history of cinema greatly inspired the French composer’s new world creation Macbeth Underworld. From Judi Dench, through Orson Welles with a leading role for Roman Polanski.

Toward the end of the summer of 1964, John Coltrane left his studio with the draft of a composition that would serve as the foundational text for a whole new genre. Here and there, some schematic indications for the piano or the bass and, in the bottom margin of the score, the following exclamation—All paths lead to God / Prayer entitled—A Love Supreme—hastily scribbled in ballpoint.

To tie in with the world creation of Le Silence des ombres, we asked Benjamin Attahir to provide brief answers to the following questions.

In Bartók / Beethoven / Schönberg, Rosas stages three repertoire pieces in an evening arrangement. The performance is branched throughout the oeuvre of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, propagating roots in the early years but also displaying the various transformations over the years. Dance is an art that is continuously changing but always exists in the now, something made clear by Bartók / Beethoven / Schönberg.

Mystery, suspense and an intangible truth that is beyond words: the work of Belgium’s first and as yet only winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Maurice Maeterlinck never divulges all his secrets. Not even in the Three Little Dramas for Marionnettes (Trois petits drames pour marionettes, 1894), three succinct and unheimlich pieces of theatre poetry revived today in the form of a new La Monnaie opera entitled Le Silence des ombres.

It is with pride and conviction that I present to you the first season of my third mandate at La Monnaie. As represented in this brochure, it reflects an important evolution: for the first time, we did not elaborate around a specific season theme, but rather around a new ‘architecture’, which can serve as a blueprint for the seasons to come. This new structure will allow us to give creation and experimentation every chance, and at the same time we will ensure that this turn towards the future is not synonymous with discontinuity. We will keep offering you projects of the very highest level, with in 2019–20 no fewer than eleven opera titles. This is a record, but also, given the number of new productions, a huge challenge for all the departments and staff members of our house.

In the last few years, Barbara Hannigan has made unforgettable debuts in several soprano roles at La Monnaie, founded a mentoring initiative for young singers and won a Grammy. Now, with a semi-staged version of Stravinsky’s “diabolic” opera The Rake’s Progress, she will be making her debut as… an operatic conductor. Time for an interview with this Canadian superstar, who, with that many talents, surely must have made her own pact with the devil.

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.