Ian Bostridge has been singing Schubert’s Winterreise for three decades. He explains why he agreed to approach a work he knows so intimately through the dark mirror of Hans Zender’s ‘composed interpretation’.

On purge bébé ! will be opera number 8.5 for Philippe Boesmans at La Monnaie. It crowns an artistic collaboration of just under forty years. A brief overview.

Der Rosenkavalier's most moving central theme sees its main character, the Marschallin, gradually giving up her relationship with her lover Octavian whom she relinquishes into the arms of a much younger (and in her eyes much more beautiful) woman. The opera raises a number of questions about how we relate as a society to age and femininity, and to its romantic and sexual issues… 

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.

This intimate video portrait, made on the occasion of his 80th birthday, reveals the life, work and unique personality of Philippe Boesmans through interviews, excerpts from his operas and documentary footage.

A comedy, certainly, but also the moving portrait of a farewell, a nostalgic look back at time past, faded beauty, lost loves. Read the synopsis of Der Rosenkavalier here, and listen to some musical highlights in advance.

For our production of Der Rosenkavalier, and in preparation for the ball that we will host at La Monnaie on this occasion, we invite you to learn a little more about the waltz, from its origins to its variations in the cinema.

However lovely, elegant and, dare we say, rosy Richard Strauss’s most popular opera may be, as an opera house, you can soon find yourself in a thorny situation. Our colleagues reveal the biggest challenges for this production… and how they are trying to overcome them.

Baron Ochs' winged nightmare! For Der Rosenkavalier, our workshops took on the challenge of sculpting a larger-than-life raven. Find out if our creations will take flight, when 'Der Rosenkavalier' premieres on October 28...

Currently preparing for our concert Salome's Dance, where she will sing excerpts from operas by Richard Strauss and Jules Massenet, soprano Elsa Dreisig talks us about her passion for the character Salome and the emotions a musician experiences before and during a concert...

In the current geopolitical climate, we can imagine that our 2022-23 season programme may surprise or even raise questions given that it includes three Russian operas. In this statement, we will explain why we have decided to continue with the planned programming. Or rather: what, due to the corona pandemic, all ended up in one and the same season.

Marking two hundred years since his birth, this article celebrates Belgian composer César Franck by recounting the highlights of his life and work.