Mussorgsky and Shostakovich in concert with La Monnaie at the Bozar in Brussels

La Monnaie at Bozar, Brussels, Sunday October 19 2025

Conductor: Dmitry Matvienko. Mezzo-soprano: Olesya Petrova. La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra.

Photos: credits not found

• Mussorgsky: A Night on the Bare Mountain, orch. Rimsky-Korsakov.
• Mussorgsky: Songs and Dances of Death, orch. Shostakovich.
• Shostakovich: Symphony N°5. 

In the last few years, La Monnaie has got into the habit of including a concert in its Sunday matinee subscription series - probably, as times are hard, to save money. But now that Alain Altinoglu has hoisted the house orchestra to unanticipated heights, these concerts have actually become something of an event: quite often, they turn out to be memorable, well worth the trip to Brussels.

Sunday's programme of Mussorgsky and Shostakovich involved two names new to me. Timur Zangiev, who conducted Tsar Saltan at La Monnaie in 2023, had to cancel ‘owing to unforeseen circumstances'. (Visa issues, I heard, though that seems odd when he's been allowed in before.) The concert was therefore an unexpected chance for me to discover Dmitry Matvienko at work, before he conducts Aida in Paris later this week (more of which in due time). He won First Prize and Audience Prize in the Malko Competition for Young Conductors four years ago, has worked closely with Vladimir Jurowksi and Vasily Petrenko, and is now principal conductor of the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra. I should imagine, based on Sunday’s performance, the Aarhusianers are pleased with their catch.

I hadn't personally come across Olesya Petrova either, but that's my omission: she's apparently been enjoying an international career for some time: New York, Madrid, Barcelona, Moscow, Amsterdam and more. She's sung at the Met, on and off, for over ten years, and will be Madelon again in this season's Andrea Chénier. Someone more attentive than I am tells me 'she has developed into a rather sumptuous Amneris of late,' and that 'she has continued to grow from strength to strength.' Lucky me, then, to discover her at last, apparently in her prime.

‘C’est une vraie voix,’ said my neighbour between numbers, i.e. hers is ‘a real voice’, at its peak, warm and expressive, showing full mastery of a wide dynamic range, from tender restraint to an impressively powerful finale, and a palpable feeling for the text (even in a language I don’t understand) that, with her engaging stage presence, helped establish an immediate rapport with the audience.

I read, as I genned up on young Matvienko, that his conducting was 'incisive, rigorous, steadfast, and careful to bring out the details' of the score (the score in question being Janacek's House of the Dead, no less, in Rome in 2023). So, in Brussels, it turned out to be. Just add 'vigorous' to 'rigorous': A Night on the Bare Mountain got off to a sizzling start, and one of the most immediately striking aspects of his conducting was his precision management of massive blocks of orchestral sound: sudden outbursts and sudden silences were handled impeccably, whirlwind tempi notwithstanding.

Also very noticeable was the dynamic range he coaxed out of the orchestra, from a barely audible pianississimo to a full-orchestra volume that had the lady in front discreetly putting a finger to her ears. With Altinolgu’s help, La Monnaie’s upper strings now achieve that glassy, searing sound that to me is one of the signs of a world-class ensemble. What I missed, in the Shostakovich, was the bleak, frosty desolation of Russian orchestras’ pianississimi, and the distinctive vibrato of their winds and brass, but you can't blame the Brussels players for being Belgian.

Those reviews of the Janacek in Rome also noted Matvienko’s unfailing attentiveness, dynamic range notwithstanding, to the singers, here very evident in the Mussorgsky song cycle. On the podium, this slight figure, nattily buttoned up in black, conducts with a dancing bounce and spring that (albeit incongruously, in terms of repertoire) recalls Rousset conducting Rameau. This brings a rhythmic jauntiness to the performance useful in Shostakovich’s more sardonic or sarcastic passages.

And it’s a real pleasure to watch him bring touches of colour and nuance to the performance with a turn of the hand, a pinch of the fingers, a shake of the head, a hunch of the shoulders… There’s a kind of meticulous rectitude to his conducting - perhaps the ‘steadfastness’ mentioned in that review from Rome. The potentially trashy and bombastic finale to Shostakovich’s 5th was, in his hands, simply straightforwardly triumphant. The timpani player had a ball.

Overall, Matvienko’s maturity in mastering all these elements seemed exceptional in one so young - and bodes well for his Verdi later in the week. He is, I’ve concluded, definitely one to watch, and Aarhus may have trouble holding on to him for long. As I’ve mentioned before, standing ovations were once a rarity in Brussels. But here, at the end, most of the hall was soon on its feet, cheering - with a special shout for that timpani player.