Alain Altinoglu Will Be Musical Director Of La Monnaie Until 2025

Alain Altinoglu's contract as Musical Director of la Monnaie has just been extended until 2025, a commitment he will combine with his new position as new Music Director of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony starting from the 2021-2022 season.

"The collaboration with Alain is essential for my third term at la Monnaie. His intention to stay was one of the main reasons why I decided to continue working in Brussels. It's with Alain that we realize most of our operas and he also conducts a major share of our symphonic concerts. This allows us to guarantee the artistic excellence of the house as well as to continue to develop and rejuvenate our orchestra and choir under the best human and organizational conditions possible," announces Peter de Caluwe, la Monnaie's General Director - Intendant.

Since his appointment in January 2016, Alain Altinoglu has directed "his" orchestra in several productions - The Golden Cockerel and The Tale of Tsar Saltane (Rimsky-Korsakov), Aida (Verdi), Dialogues of the Carmelites (Poulenc), Bluebeard's Castle (Bartók), Don Pasquale (Donizetti), Lohengrin and Tristan und Isolde (Wagner) - as well as in a vast symphonic repertoire ranging from Beethoven to contemporary music through Brahms, Berlioz, Fauré, Janáček, Bartók , Ravel and Stravinsky; this season's program is mainly dedicated to Richard Strauss' and Tchaikovsky's works.

"I'm glad to be able to continue my collaboration with la Monnaie until 2025. It is a great privilege to be part of this prestigious house, full of all its traditions, and always a pleasure to lead an orchestra and a chorus this talented and committed. After all the successes of our past productions, I look forward to new artistic adventures and to seeing where our musical journey will lead us," says Musical Director Alain Altinoglu.

In addition, Alain Altinoglu's international career has continued to grow these last seasons. He made his debut in Bayreuth with a successful Lohengrin (Wagner) and at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Don Giovanni (Mozart). He directed the new productions of Manon Lescaut (Puccini) at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Werther (Massenet) at the Metropolitan Opera of New York, Iolanta and The Nutcracker (Tchaikovsky) at the Opéra de Paris, Salome (Strauss) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Pelléas and Mélisande
(Debussy) at Opernhaus Zürich and Les Troyens (Berlioz) at Wiener Staatsoper. He's also a regular guest conductor of leading international orchestras such as the Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boston Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Last season, Alain Altinoglu directed the complete Beethoven symphonies with la Monnaie Symphony Orchestra. This past summer, he gave two prestigious outdoor concerts: on July 14 for the French National Day where he was at the head of the Orchestre National de France on the Champ-de-Mars in Paris; and on 22 August, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony on the banks of the Main, as part of the Europa Open Air event, which was also attended by la Monnaie Chorus.

The work of our musical director with la Monnaie Orchestra is also noticed by the press. Impressed by Alain Altinoglu's conducting of the orchestra during The Tale of Tsar Saltan
last June, Christian Merlin (Le Figaro) wrote: "On craint de finir par manquer des superlatifs pour vanter le travail de renaissance musicale entrepris par Alain Altinoglu à Bruxelles. Sous sa direction aussi attentive à la couleur qu'au dessin, ciselée dans le détail tout en gardant une continuité lyrique sans chute de tension, l'Orchestre de la Monnaie étincelle et scintille "

This season, after Pascal Dusapin's world premiere Macbeth Underworld, Alain Altinoglu will be conducting the new productions of Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Offenbach) as well as Der Rosenkavalier (Strauss) and almost all of our concerts.