La Monnaie / De Munt LA MONNAIE / DE MUNT
Opera in concert

À l’extrême bord du monde
Harold Noben

Presentation
Opera / Opera in concert
we decided, born in love, not to leave each other.— Stefan Zweig

Petropolis, 22 February 1942. Writer Stefan Zweig and his wife Lotte are having a chat in their favourite café. Far from their “spiritual homeland Europe”, the Austrian couple are preparing for another departure: a goodbye that will shake up and divide the intellectual and literary world, while also sealing the fate of these two lonely souls. “Of their own will and in clear mind”, they decide to commit suicide together.

Belgian composer Harold Noben (Bovary) has dedicated a chamber opera for mezzo, tenor and piano quartet to these tragic final days: À l’extrême bord du monde (On the Far Edge of the World), with a libretto by Jacques De Decker. Premiered in 2020 at La Monnaie, we are delighted to be reviving the work in a concert version, with musicians from the La Monnaie Orchestra, as well as MM Laureate Marie-Juliette Ghazarian in the role of Lotte Zweig and Valentin Thill, who created the role of Stefan Zweig.

Dates & tickets

Location

Malibran room (La Monnaie Workshops)

Running time

55 minutes (no interval)

Prices

€ 10

Language

Sung in French
Surtitles in Dutch and French

Dates & tickets

Dates & Tickets

Cast
Cast

ConductorHAROLD NOBEN

Lotte ZweigMARIE-JULIETTE GHAZARIAN (MM LAUREATE)
Stefan ZweigVALENTIN THILL

Noémi Tiercet (vl), Takumi Nozawa (vla), Sébastien Walnier (vc), Nadia Jradia (pf)

The preparatory phases of this project at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel were supported by enoa and the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.