We left at the interval...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday March 22 2026 Conductor: Enrico Onofri. Production: Calixto Bieito. Sets: Anna-Sofia Kirsch. Costumes: Paula Kleiné. Lighting: Reinhard Traub/Calixto Bieito. Vidéo: Adrià Reixach. Idomeneo: Joshua Stewart. Idamante: Gaëlle Arquez. Ilia: Shira Patchornik. Elettra: Kathryn Lewek. Gran Sacerdote di Nettuno: Michael J. Scott. La Voce: Frederic Jost. Cretesi e Troiani: Manon Poskin, Nadiia Lys, Taeksung Kwon, Byoungjin Lee. Orchestra and chorus of La Monnaie. Photos: © S. Van Rompay/La Monnaie Calixto Bieito is, so I read, well pleased with how his production of Idomeneo (a co-production with the State Opera in Prague, where it premiered last year), turned out: a dream. His intention, so I also read, was to approach the work as a psychological study of the traumatic after-effects of war on those who’ve waged it, and on their relationships with their family and entourage. The backdrop to this mental landscape, meanwhile, is a fluctuating memory of the sea, where...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday March 8 2020 Conductor: Antonello Manacorda. Production and costumes: Jean-Philippe Clarac, Olivier Deloeuil (> Le Lab). Sets: Rick Martin. Lighting: Christophe Pitoiset. Video: Jean-Baptiste Beïs, Timothée Buisson. Fiordiligi: Lenneke Ruiten. Dorabella: Ginger Costa-Jackson. Guglielmo: Iurii Samoilov. Ferrando: Juan Francisco Gatell. Despina: Caterina Di Tonno. Don Alfonso: Riccardo Novaro. La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. So, as I was saying last week... The idea at La Monnaie is to present the Mozart-Da Ponte operas as three episodes of a single work, in a single set and with the same cast, setting it in present-day Brussels and attempting at least to raise contemporary sexual and gender issues. As La Monnaie's programme is issued in French and Flemish, I thought it might be useful to translate a selection of phrases from an interview with the directors. ' What interests us as we work on the repertory is to give it a contemp...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday March 1 2020 Conductor: Antonello Manacorda. Production and Costumes: Jean-Philippe Clarac, Olivier Deloeuil (> Le Lab). Sets: Rick Martin. Lighting: Christophe Pitoiset. Video: Jean-Baptiste Beïs, Timothée Buisson. Il Conte di Almaviva: Björn Bürger. La Contessa di Almaviva: Simona Šaturová. Susanna: Sophia Burgos. Figaro: Alessio Arduini. Cherubino: Ginger Costa-Jackson. Marcellina: Rinat Shaham. Bartolo: Alexander Roslavets. Don Basilio, Don Curzio: Yves Saelens. Barbarina: Caterina di Tonno. Antonio: Riccardo Novaro. La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Wolfgang Tillmans, Wet Room, Gloves, 2010 ' The “great Italian three” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte reimagined as a single coherent trilogy: that is the challenge La Monnaie has taken on this season with the Clarac-Delœuil > le lab creative arts team and conductors Antonello Manacorda and Ben Glassberg. In their version, Le nozze di Figaro, Così fan tu...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday September 30 2018 Conductor: Ben Glassberg. Production, sets, costumes, lighting: Romeo Castellucci. Choreography: Cindy Van Acker. Algorithmic architecture: Michael Hansmeyer. Artistic collaboration: Silvia Costa. Added dialogues: Claudia Castellucci. Sarastro: Gabor Bretz. Tamino: Ed Lyon. Sprecher: Dietrich Henschel. Königin der Nacht: Sabine Devieilhe. Pamina: Sophie Karthäuser. Erste Dame: Tineke Van Ingelgem. Zweite Dame: Angélique Noldus. Dritte Dame; Esther Kuiper. Papageno: Georg Nigl. Papagena: Elena Galitskaya. Monostatos, ein Mohr: Elmar Gilbertsson. Erster Priester / Zweiter geharnischter Mann: Guillaume Antoine. Zweiter Priester / Erster geharnischter Mann: Yves Saelens. Drei Knaben: Sofia Royo Csoka, Tobias Van Haeperen, Elfie Salauddin Crémer. La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, MM Academy & La Monnaie's Children's and Youth Chorus. Mozart As it happens, I was quite amused just this last week by a cartoon in VI...

La Philharmonie, Paris, Thursday September 8 2016 Conductor and piano soloist: Daniel Barenboim. Staatskapelle Berlin. Mozart, piano concerto n°26 Bruckner, symphony n°6 I know nothing about acoustics and will only try to describe what I thought I heard from my single seat the other night. But scouting round the web for better-informed opinions about Paris's Philharmonie, I came across a blog called From The Sound Up , by an acoustical and architectural designer working in New York, and an article there entitled Why I can’t review the Philharmonie de Paris but why it’s worth trying anyway: a meditation on variability , which gives the impression that the sound in the new hall is especially varied. “Variation in the sound field is the topic of this post,” he writes, “because it is all I could think about after my experience in the brand-new (or, more accurately, yet-to-be-finished) Philharmonie de Paris. During a single concert, I experienced what might have been the w...

Palais de la Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday May 15 2016 Conductor: Christophe Rousset. Production and costumes: Jean-Philippe Clarac and Olivier Deloeuil - Le Lab. Sets and lighting: Rick Martin. Video: Jean-Baptiste Beïs. Mitridate: Michael Spyres. Aspasia: Lenneke Ruiten. Sifare: Myrtò Papatanasiu. Farnace: David Hansen. Ismene: Simona Šaturová. Marzio: Sergey Romanovsky. Arbate: Yves Saelens. Orchestra of La Monnaie. Mozart Waffle-warning: this account is going to start with a fair amount of waffle not all directly related to yesterday's performance of Mitridate . Feel free to skip the digression. To help, I will mark the start of the write-up proper clearly in CAPITALS. But first, the waffle... These must be nail-racking, nerve-biting times for the people in charge of La Monnaie. The house was already supposed to be hard up, as they all are these days. Then it announced that its home, the Théâtre Royal, seriously needed renovating, so last season's performances took p...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday December 7 2014 Conductor: Ludovic Morlot. Production: Krzysztof Warlikowski. Sets & Costumes: Malgorzata Szczesniak. Lighting: Felice Ross. Video: Denis Guéguin. Don Giovanni: Jean-Sébastien Bou. Il Commendatore: Sir Willard White. Donna Anna: Barbara Hannigan. Don Ottavio: Topi Lehtipuu. Donna Elvira: Rinat Shaham. Leporello: Andreas Wolf. Masetto: Jean-Luc Ballestra. Zerlina: Julie Mathevet. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. Mozart (again) You can't win them all. After a series of successful productions (in my view at any rate: his Makropoulos Affair is one of the Bastille’s best ever), I suppose Krzysztof Warlikowski was bound to come a cropper at some stage, and that was exactly how French daily Le Figaro chose to head its review " Don Giovanni : Warlikowski se casse les dents", i.e. Warlikowski comes a cropper. You expect something novel, thoughtful and interesting from him, but here he disappointed by dishing up what a...

ONP Garnier, Monday October 27 2014 Conductor: Philippe Jordan. Production: Zabou Breitman. Sets: Jean-Marc Stehlé. Costumes: Arielle Chanty. Choreography: Sophie Tellier. Lighting: André Diot. Selim: Jürgen Maurer. Konstanze: Erin Morley. Blonde: Anna Prohaska. Belmonte: Bernard Richter. Pedrillo: Paul Schweinester. Osmin: Lars Woldt. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Mozart Believe it or not, I was actually in Istanbul, having lunch in the grounds of Topkapi Palace* (in Turkish, "Topkapı Sarayı" hence "Serail" in Mozart's title), when I got a text message from Paris: " Entführung is dismal! Opéra de Limoges style." As it happens (this will seem far-fetched, but truth is supposed to be stranger than fiction) the person opposite me during lunch was from Limoges, and took umbrage at the implied slur on her home town. She was with me at last night's performance of the Entführung in question, at the Palais Garnier (in Turki...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday October 13 2013 Conductor: Ludovic Morlot. Production: Ivo van Hove. Sets: Jan Versweyveld. Costumes: An D’Huys. Video: Tal Yarden. Tito Vespasiano: Kurt Streit. Vitellia: Véronique Gens. Servilia: Simona Šaturová. Sesto: Anna Bonitatibus. Annio: Anna Grevelius. Publio: Alex Esposito. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. Visually, this handsome new Brussels production of Clemenza was as chic as it gets. Musically, taking its cue from the hero, perhaps, it was a model of civilised restraint. Mozart Let’s take the unrelenting chic first. The single set was a textbook display of understated, contemporary glamour. Forget bling. This was über -cool. Think Wallpaper magazine. Think designer lodges in rich resorts. Think Singapore Airlines’ flagship lounge at Changi. Think Scandinavian revival: tan carpet, sleek, teak furniture, autumn colours, burnished silks. On the right, a desk with drinks and diary. At the back, twin beds against a teak headboard, w...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday June 2 2013 Conductor: Ludovic Morlot. Production: Michael Haneke. Sets: Christoph Kanter. Costumes: Moidele Bickel. Lighting: Urs Schönebaum. Fiordiligi: Annett Fritsch. Dorabella: Paola Gardina. Guglielmo: Andreas Wolf. Ferrando: Juan Francisco Gatell. Despina: Kerstin Avemo. Don Alfonso: William Shimell. Orchestra and chorus of La Monnaie. " Yes , [Mozart's characters] are overwhelmed as well as overwhelming and set challenges for one another. They go astray and end up not knowing which way to turn. They want to ‘save face’ and, to do so, lose track more and more of who they really are. It’s a lot to do with self-assertion and fear ". (Michael Haneke on La Monnaie's website.) I was at first concerned to read, in La Libre Belgique , that Michael Haneke had "chosen and imposed" the cast for this production of Così fan tutte . Stage directors do too much "imposing" of casts, forcing us to put up with voiceless wo...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Friday June 24 2011. Conductor: Jérémie Rhorer. Sally Matthews, soprano. Ann Hallenberg, mezzo-soprano. Rainer Trost, tenor. Nahuel di Pierro, bass. Le Cercle de l'Harmonie. Choeur Les Eléments. I thought I’d better dash off a brief account of last night’s Mozart concert today, as tomorrow I have five hours of Meyerbeer in Brussels and may find myself with a lot more to write about. The magnificent C Minor Mass , so magnificent even I have a recording of it, was preceded by the smaller-scale and less magnificent Solemn Vespers , though they do contain one smash hit for the soprano. I was, for once (and by accident; if I’d paid more attention I would have chosen seats elsewhere), on the front row. This naturally brings you a bit too close for comfort to the people on stage - at such close range they are all too human: you can see the un-hemmed trousers, the hairy nostrils, the state of their shoes (in baroque orchestras, usually terrible) the ...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday March 20 2011 Conductor: John Nelson. Production: Karl-Ernst Herrmann, Ursel Herrmann. Sets, costumes and lighting. Don Anchise, podestà di Lagonero: Jeffrey Francis. La Marchesa Violante Onesti (Sandrina): Sandrine Piau. Il Contino Belfiore: Jeremy Ovenden. Arminda: Henriette Bonde-Hansen. Il cavaliere Ramiro: Stella Doufexis. Serpetta: Katerina Knežíková. Roberto (Nardo): Adam Plachetka. ...: Mireille Mossé. Orchestra of la Monnaie. I don’t deny for a moment that Mozart was one of the greatest composers of all time, but he composed in a period that doesn’t appeal to me much. So the idea of young Mozart (I won’t actually say “second-rate” for fear of getting shouted down) in a 20-year old production had me, once again, fearing the worst. It turned out, however, that the Hermanns had completely revamped their staging: it was fresh as a daisy and outstandingly good, all that an outstanding production should be: intelligent, handsome, rich in detail and re...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday March 21 2010 Conductor: Jérémie Rhorer. Production: Ivo van Hove. Sets and lighting: Jan Versweyveld. Costumes: Lies Van Assche. Video: Tal Yarden. Idomeneo: Gregory Kunde. Idamante: Malena Ernman. Ilia: Sophie Karthäuser. Elettra: Alexandrina Pendatchanska. Arbace: Kenneth Tarver. Gran Sacerdote di Nettuno: Nigel Robson. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. The quotation from The Economist was about poets and their poetry, not singers and their warbling, but reading it the morning after Idomeneo in Brussels I was struck by its relevance to what we’d heard: “… teasing, finicky word players who often write in disappointingly short lines and seem to lack the ambition, the emotional force, the rhetorical reach, and even the range of subject matter of great poets of the past. Where to go these days to find the real thing?” Just change a few words here and there… Our complaint, or more particularly the frequent complaint of one of my French friends, is ...