From July 5 to 7, the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra will perform three concerts at the ‘Festival International de Colmar’, a prestigious music festival under the artistic direction of Alain Altinoglu.
Since 1979, the ‘Festival International de Colmar’ has brought world-class soloists and orchestras to various historical locations in the city, such as Koïfhus, l’église Saint-Matthieu, the chapelle Saint-Pierre, and the Parc des Expositions. In 2023, after a three-year hiatus, the festival got a new jumpstart with Alain Altinoglu as artistic director.
During the 2024 edition, our Music Director and the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra will give three concerts. On July 5, they will open the festival with the 'Vorspiel' from Wagner's Lohengrin, César Franck's Symphony in D minor, and Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, alongside baritone Stéphane Degout. This concert will be broadcast on Arte. Together with tenor Ed Lyon, our musicians will also present a British programme, including the overture from Thomas Adès' The Tempest, Benjamin Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings (featuring Principal Horn Jean-Pierre Dassonville) and Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations. A 'Symphonic Mob', a grand open-air concert that allows amateur musicians and singers to join our symphony orchestra and to perform the finest classics from the repertoire together, will conclude the concert tour.
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.
