OPÉRA NORMA at La Monnaie

LA GIOCONDA Comes to La Monnaie

Amilcare Ponchielli's opera La Gioconda (no link whatsoever with the painting in the Louvre) is one of those works too rarely represented despite its obvious qualities. Once the most successful opera between Verdi's Aida (1871) and Otello (1887), it is now considered a work stylistically so heterogeneous and both vocally and scenically so demanding that few opera houses try their hand at it. La Monnaie takes on the challenge and invites conductor Paolo Carignani and stage director Olivier Py to revive the whole grand opera behind 'The Dance of the Hours'.