Two World Premiere Works Announced at Opera Vlaanderen Royal Ballet Flanders

Opera Vlaanderen Royal Ballet Flanders is excited to announce two major projects that will have their world premiere next season. Opera Vlaanderen will create a new opera Les Bienveillantes based on the international bestseller by Jonathan Littell and none other than Benjamin Millepied will create his first full length ballet for Royal Ballet Flanders. Both projects are shortlisted for a Fedora-prize. It will be announced later this afternoon in Paris.

Fedora is The European Circle of Philanthropists of Opera and Ballet. Every year they choose new opera and ballet works to support financially. The Fedora Van Cleef & Arpels Award for Ballet is worth 100.000 euro and with the Fedora Generali Award for Opera comes a prize of 150.000 euro. Fedora's mission is to support creativity and new visionary works in opera and ballet.

Opera Vlaanderen Royal Ballet Flanders is on the short list for this prestigious award with two major new works.

Next season Opera Vlaanderen will produce a new opera based on the much discussed international bestseller Les Bienveillantes/The Kindly Ones (2006) by Jonathan Littell, which won the Prix Goncourt among other literary awards and became a literary sensation.

This project based on the 900+ page novel about the horrors of WWII will be the successor to the internationally acclaimed Infinite Now, the opera by Chaya Czernowin and Luk Perceval on WWI which was named the best world creation of season 2016-2017 by several trade publications.

Hèctor Parra, one of the most remarkable young composers of the moment, and librettist Hänzl Klaus will translate this complex and powerful literary work to the opera genre. Calixto Bieito will direct. Les Bienveillantes is a coproduction with Teatro Real Madrid and Staatstheater Nürnberg.

The project proposed to Fedora by Royal Ballet Flanders will be the first full length ballet by the world renowned choreographer Benjamin Millepied. Millepied was director of the Ballet at the Opéra National de Paris and is artistic director of his own company LA Dance Project. His choreographies are danced by all the major companies in the world, but a full length ballet is still missing on his impressive repertoire. Now he will create one on works by Bach for Royal Ballet Flanders.

The audience can also decide who will win the Fedora Award. They can cast a vote for both projects on the new Fedora Platform - www.fedora-platform.com - which will be launched at 5 pm today.

The world premieres of both productions will be in spring 2019. More information will follow with the presentation of the new season.