Thomas Jolly takes us backstage during the rehearsals for La Monnaie’s brand new opera Macbeth Underworld. France’s latest Shakespeare-sensation talked to us at length about his latest project, the collaboration with Pascal Dusapin and the atmosphere at our opera house.

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.

Shaping Silence. Get the bigger picture of the creative process behind a brand-new opera, as we follow composer Benjamin Attahir,  stage director Olivier Lexa and a cast of young singers during their rehearsals for Le Silence des ombres.

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.

From Shakespeare to Judi Dench, from the inspiration he found in films to the opera singers he chose for the leading roles: the French composer Pascal Dusapin discusses the genesis of his new opera commissioned by La Monnaie, Macbeth Underworld.

A quick introduction to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Tale of Tsar Saltan? Time for a knock on the door of our dramaturge Marie Mergeay. In less than four minutes, she guides you through the final opera production of this season. Major stops: the city of Tmutarakan, the isle of Buyan and the creative brain of stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov.

Composer and former general director of La Monnaie Bernard Foccroulle explains how the late choreographer Trisha Brown served as an inspiration for Climbing – Dancing. His cello concerto, commissioned by La Monnaie, gives a contemporary touch to the final Beethoven concert of our 2018-19 cycle, with the Seventh and Eighth Symfonies.

A few days before the world premiere of Bernard Foccroulle’s Climbing – Dancing, La Monnaie cellist Sébastien Walnier shares his impressions on this new cello concerto dedicated to Trisha Brown.

Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde poses a major challenge to every opera director. To turn the unendliche stream of monologues and dialogues in this masterpiece into enduring images, La Monnaie brought together two complementary visual artists. The German film director Ralf Pleger is well-acquainted with the Wagnerian universe: his documentary on the life and work of this composer won him the Public Award on the 2013 World Film Festival of Montréal. For this new production, he joins hands with the German sculptor Alexander Polzin, who previously at La Monnaie created the impressive stage design for our 2017 production of Aida. In this video portrait, both artists contemplate their approach to Wagner’s timeless hymn to love and death.