Past Shows
The Tale of Tsar Saltan
Jun 11 – Jun 29, 2019
‘I bring light and joy to many on earth, sorrow becomes sweet in a song; in a tale, fear becomes endearing.’ Years after Tsar Saltan...
Tristan und Isolde
May 2 – May 19, 2019
'As I have never truly experienced the happiness of love in my life,' Richard Wagner wrote to Franz Liszt in December 1854, 'I would like...
Robert le Diable
Apr 2 – Apr 5, 2019
Robert le Diable, the first opera in French by Giacomo Meyerbeer, was inspired by the medieval legend of the Norman duke Robert, with at its...
The Rake's Progress
Mar 25 – Mar 26, 2019
In his Poetics of Music, Igor Stravinsky wondered how, for a composer, past and present, and tradition and renewal relate to each other. He came...
Frankenstein
Mar 8 – Mar 20, 2019
Unlike what was later made of it by Hollywood, Mary Shelley's original novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus tells the profoundly sad tale of a...
La Gioconda
Jan 29 – Feb 12, 2019
In his day, Amilcare Ponchielli was considered the most important Italian composer of the generation after Verdi, but today we know him primarily for La...
Don Pasquale
Dec 9 – Dec 23, 2018
'I like to shine; I love joking'. The words of the coquettish Norina, the female character at the heart of Don Pasquale, Donizetti's 64th opera,...
From the House of the Dead
Nov 6 – Nov 17, 2018
'There is a divine spark in every being!' It was under this humanist motto that Leos Janecek composed his final opera, Z mrtveho domu (From...
Die Zauberflote
Sep 18 – Oct 3, 2018
'Strength has triumphed, rewarding beauty and wisdom with an everlasting crown!' Culminating in praise of those virtues, Die Zauberflote has since become an emblem of...
An Die Freude
Jun 30
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.’ If there is one work that can claim to illustrate these words of Beethoven’s, it...
The Miraculous Mandarin & Bluebeard’s Castle
Jun 8 – Jun 24, 2018
‘Hopes, chimeras, distant mysteries... What does this story tell us?’ The Prologue to Bluebeard’s Castle invites us to consider the work as a mysterious adventure...
Háry János
May 22
His pagan barbarity, his explosive and angrily defiant melancholy, his demoniacal instinct...these are all echoes...of the thousand-year-old Hungarian psyche’: words attributed to Béla Bartók. Following...
Queen Elisabeth Competition
May 10 – May 12, 2018
In 2018, for the ninth time in its history, the Queen Elisabeth Competition will focus on singing. From 1 to 12 May, an international jury...
Lohengrin
Apr 19 – May 6, 2018
‘In reality, this Lohengrin is an entirely new phenomenon for the modern consciousness!’ Richard Wagner himself understood the innovative character of his sixth piece of...
Achterland
Apr 12 – Apr 15, 2018
Achterland is a seminal choreography in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s highly individual body of work, as it contains the fruit of what preceded it as...
Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci
Mar 6 – Mar 22, 2018
One of the most popular opera double-headers is once again on the bill at La Monnaie after an absence of 15 years. In these two...
Journey to Bluebeard
Feb 11 – Feb 17, 2018
Béla Bartók, speaking of Franz Liszt, described ‘... an astonishing audaciousness, in both form and content. This boldness is quite simply the fanatical tendency towards...
Requiem
Feb 9 – Feb 13, 2018
‘I wrote this requiem for myself...’, bemoaned Mozart, worn-out but conscious that his Mass for the Dead would become his musical testament and would guarantee...
Kreatur
Feb 2 – Feb 4, 2018
New choreographic works by Sasha Waltz invariably surprise us with their grouping, the depth of their subjects and styles, and their stunning aesthetics. Her next...
Sheherazade
Feb 4
Sultan Shahryar was of the opinion that all women were unfaithful and he had therefore decided that all his wives had to be killed after...
Il Prigioniero & Das Gehege
Jan 16 – Jan 27, 2018
‘Hope: the final torture...’ Ever since a jailer called him ‘brother’, a prisoner has hope that he will be freed. The door of his cell,...
Dialogues des Carmélites
Dec 8 – Dec 23, 2017
‘We are not afraid: we imagine we are afraid. Fear is a delusion sent by the devil.’ In his screenplay Dialogues des Carmélites, later adapted...
Zeitung
Nov 9 – Nov 18, 2017
In 2008, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Alain Franco created Zeitung. In Zeitung, they focused on choreographic and musical material that dealt with composition, improvisation,...
Lucio Silla
Oct 29 – Nov 15, 2017
‘I now realise that innocence and a good heart are far more precious to the soul than false glory.’ ‘La Clemenza di Silla’? In Mozart’s...
Leonore
Oct 26
‘Love has guided all my endeavours; true love knows no fear.’ Dressed as a man and under the name of Fidelio, Leonore takes a job...
Tancredi
Oct 11 – Oct 14, 2017
Against the backdrop of the power struggle between the Byzantines and the Saracens, the city state of Syracuse is divided by internal conflicts. The hoped-for...
Pinocchio
Sep 5 – Sep 16, 2017
‘It’s natural to think that Pinocchio has always existed; it is impossible to imagine the world without him.’ Italo Calvino put it well: we all...
Videos