We left at the interval...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday December 18 2022 Conductor: Bassem Akiki. Production: Richard Brunel. Sets: Etienne Pluss. Costumes: Bruno de Lavenère. Lighting: Laurent Castaingt. Bastien Follavoine: Jean-Sébastien Bou. Julie Follavoine: Jodie Devos. Aristide Chouilloux: Denzil Delaere. Clémence Chouilloux: Sophie Pondjiclis. Horace Truchet: Jérôme Varnier. Toto: Tibor Ockenfels. Toto (as a child): Martin da Silva Magalhães. La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra. Photos: Jean-Louis Fernandez/La Monnaie My 2022 operatic agenda ended with  On purge bébé , Philippe Boesmans' eighth and last opera (completed after his death in 2021 by his friend Benoît Mernier, with advice from Sylvain Cambreling), at La Monnaie in Brussels: an hour and twenty minutes of sheer, scatological fun, revolving around the enfant roi Toto’s constipation (Toto, short for Hervé we are told, is, by the way, actually seven, not a toddler), a contract for 300,000 chamber pots, and of course (the vaudeville is by Feydeau, ...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday September 10 2017 Conductor: Patrick Davin. Production: Joël Pommerat. Sets and lighting: Eric Soyer. Costumes: Isabelle Deffin. Video: Renaud Rubiano. Le directeur de la troupe, premier escroc, deuxième meurtrier, le directeur de cirque: Stéphane Degout. Le père, troisième meurtrier, le maître d’école: Vincent Le Texier. Le pantin: Chloé Briot. Deuxième escroc, le directeur de cabaret, le juge, premier meurtrier, le marchand d'ânes: Yann Beuron. La chanteuse de cabaret, le mauvais élève: Julie Boulianne. La fée: Marie-Eve Munger. Stage music: Fabrizio Cassol (saxophone and improvisation coordination), Philippe Thuriot (accordion), Tcha Limberger (gypsy violin). La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra. I try to have a couple of new or at least recent operas in every year's schedule. More often than not the result is rewarding, though I'll never forget how, trapped in the middle of a row during L'Amour de Loin , I ached – literally - to escape. ...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday September 19 2010 Conductor: Patrick Davin. Production: Luc Bondy. Sets: Richard Peduzzi. Costumes, hair and make-up: Milena Canonero. Lighting: Dominique Bruguière. Yvonne: Dörte Lyssewski. Le Roi Ignace: Paul Gay. La Reine Marguerite: Mireille Delunsch. Le Prince Philippe: Marcel Reijans. Le Chambellan: Werner Van Mechelen. Isabelle: Hannah Esther Minutillo. Cyrille: Jason Bridges. Cyprien: Jean-Luc Ballestra. Innocent: Guillaume Antoine. Le Mendiant: Marc Coulon. Les Tantes: Beata Morawska, Alain-Pierre Wingelinckx. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. I’d heard of psychodrama but Yvonne, Princesse de Bourgogne was my chance to meet psychocomedy. I suspect that to be fascinated by either you need to be intellectually inclined, and I’m not, so I wasn’t. Yvonne is based on a play by a Pole called Gombrowicz, in which a prince decides that, as convention would have him marry a beautiful, charming princess, he will marry the graceless Yvonne instead. Soon, ...

La Monnaie, Brussels – March 13 2005 Conductor: Kazushi Ono. Production: Luc Bondy. Sets: Richard Peduzzi. Jean: Garry Magee. Julie: Malena Ernman. Kristin: Kerstin Avemo. La Monnaie Chamber Orchestra. Boesmans When a brand new opera has just been premiered, there are two things you’d like to find out from a write-up: (1) was it any good? and (2) what was it like? For me, as an amateur “reviewing” Philippe Boesmans’ new opera Julie (based on Strindberg’s play) after just one hearing, answering the first question is easy: yes. Answering the second is a good deal harder. But I’ll give it a try – and try, also, to make fewer factual errors than some professionals… The first thing that came to mind was that the overall style was like a meeting between Britten’s Screw and Zemlinksy’s Der Zwerg . Thoughts of the former, I decided, were probably due mainly (only?) to Boesmans’ use of a chamber ensemble of around 20 players and to the opera’s claustrophobic, country-house setting, plus the f...