Our new production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s magical opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan has won the Casta Diva Award for ‘best European opera event’.
The Casta Diva awards honor the best opera’s in Russian theaters while also handing out a prize for the best production with a Russian artistic team, performed abroad. Our production of The Tale of Tsar Saltan secured this second award, for ‘best European opera event’.
To revalue Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, based on a folk story by Alexander Pushkin, we called upon an artistic team that grew up with the national poet’s tale: with Dmitri Tcherniakov directing, Elena Zaytseva in charge of the colourful costumes and Gleb Filshtinsky providing the impressive video projections. They retell the story of Prince Gvidon as a contemporary family drama, where a mother plays along with the fairy-tale world of her autistic son, in order to communicate with him about the traumatic absence of his father. On stage too, many of the artists were native speakers too, with Svetlana Aksenova as Tsarina Militrisa and Bogdan Volkov as Tsarevich Gvidon. During the Award ceremony, Volkov got to celebrate a second time for his role as Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, which the jury named best co-production of the year.
The Tale of Tsar Saltan can be watched for free on our website until the 19th of April during the La Monnaie Virtual Season. In a few months, we’ll know if this production also manages to secure it’s nomination as ‘Best new production’ at the International Opera Awards.
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.
