On 21 January, the Jury of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) announced the winners for the 2020 edition, which mark the tenth anniversary of this prestigious musical recognition. La Monnaie received the award in the category “contemporary” for the double cd of Pascal Dusapin’s Penthesilea.
With Penthesilea, Pascal Dusapin delivered a wild, powerful music drama on the tragic love between Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, and the Greek hero Achilles. The opera, conducted by Franck Ollu and starring Georg Nigl and Natascha Petrinsky in the main roles, was recorded in full during the world creation at La Monnaie in 2015, and released on double cd by Cypres in September 2019.
This season, Brussels goes all out on Pascal Dusapin. After having presented the world creation of his latest opera, Macbeth Underworld, in September, La Monnaie now joins hands with the Belgian National Orchestra and BOZAR for a special Dusapin day witch concerts, master classes and encounters on 14 February.
During a literary encounter with J. M. Coetzee on the stage of La Monnaie, Christina Scheppelmann announced that the 2003 Nobel Prize winner in Literature is writing a libretto for a new La Monnaie opera, to be premiered in the 2027–2028 season: Elizabeth Costello in limbo.
Christina Scheppelmann, who became the first female General and Artistic Director of La Monnaie this season, has been nominated for the ELLE Woman of the Year 2025 award.
On 29 September 2025, the façade of La Monnaie will turn red for World Heart Day. With this symbolic gesture, our opera house joins a global movement raising awareness about cardiovascular diseases.
