Love can drive you crazy… And indeed, that is the lot that befalls the medieval hero Orlando. His quests lead him not only onto battlefields and through magic forests, but also to the abyss of his mind. When his love for Princess Angelica goes unanswered, the wandering knight gradually loses his grip on reality…

Furioso

La Monnaie - De Munt

After triumphing in a semi-staged Winterreise and leaving a strong impression in Esperienza in I Grotteschi, countertenor Xavier Sabata returns to La Monnaie with a recital program centered on the emblematic figure of Orlando Furioso. One week before taking the stage of the Main Hall, this specialist in Baroque music will lead a public vocal masterclass dedicated to this repertoire, together with the young singers of the MM Academy. In the acoustically ideal setting of the Fiocco Room, Xavier Sabata will work with them on the technique and vocal expression of great Baroque arias.

Xavier Sabata

Between the first, hesitant sketches on a blank sheet of music paper and opening night, the creation of a new opera involves many stages: looking for inspiration, collaborating with the librettist and the soloists, orchestrating and applying the final touches.

Inside the Music

Concertini

Join us for a vocal workshop focusing on the mythical figure of Medusa.

Be[a]st

SINGING MIGHT MAKE MORE SENSE OF LIFE THAN LIVING HAD TO START WITH.</q><cite>— RICHARD POWERS (THE TIME OF OUR SINGING)</cite> <p>After a year of anticipation, Kris Defoort’s new opera will finally be brought to the stage! Black Lives Matter, police brutality, rigged elections: these are themes that have remained at the forefront of current affairs over the past year. There are clear parallels to be drawn between the recent history of the US and <em>The Time of Our Singing</em>, which was inspired by the Richard Powers novel of the same name. The work depicts the life of a mixed-race family that is both united and divided by music, against the backdrop of segregation in the post-war United States. In collaboration with the librettist Peter van Kraaij, the conductor Kwamé Ryan, and the stage director Ted Huffman, Kris Defoort conjures an imaginary space in which official history and personal histories intertwine, in which people come together to weave a narrative, and in which jazz and classical music are enriched by one another. ‘To my mind, it doesn’t happen often that a contemporary opera is so profoundly rooted in the “now” and yet raises so many universal themes.’ (Kris Defoort)

EPSG:4326

The Time of Our Singing

La Monnaie

Under 30? Then join Young Opera for free and make sure to attend our operas on the Young Opera Nights: one date in the run when you and hundreds of other young opera lovers enjoy a personal welcome, a free drink, a free digital programme booklet and an afterevent or other suprise.

Young Opera Nights

A trio of memorable characters, a thrilling plot, iconic arias... It is no surprise that Tosca consistently ranks among the most frequently performed operas in the world. But through which musical devices does Giacomo Puccini manage to keep you on the edge of your seat for two hours? What do the accompanying chords reveal about the complex psychology of Scarpia, Tosca, and Cavaradossi? And what makes the melodies of “Vissi d’arte”, “E lucevan le stelle”, or the “Te Deum” strike us right at the core?

A tribute to Julie Andrews and the golden age of musical with some of the most memorable tunes from The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, West Side Story and more.

Chasing Rainbows

High-spirited, devout, a tad jealous and above all a true diva — that’s Floria Tosca! With her captivating voice and undeniable star qualities, she triumphs on the Roman stages, while the city groans under Baron Scarpia’s reign of terror. The corrupt chief of police is infatuated with the singer and so has two reasons to eliminate her lover Mario Cavaradossi, a sympathiser with the city’s political rebels. He offers Tosca the choice: if she gives herself to him, Mario will not be executed the next morning…

Tosca

Each year, the Festival international de Colmar transforms the city’s most distinguished heritage venues into vibrant stages for world-class soloists and leading ensembles. Since 2023, the festival has been under the artistic direction of Alain Altinoglu.

The La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra at the Colmar Festival

Église Saint-Matthieu de Colmar

On 29 July and 1 August 2026, the Salzburg Festival, the world’s most prestigious opera festival, will welcome the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director Alain Altinoglu for two concert performances of Jules Massenet’s Werther. They will share the stage of the Großes Festspielhaus with a star cast led by Benjamin Bernheim (Werther), Marianne Crebassa (Charlotte) and Sandra Hamaoui (Sophie), along with the Salzburg Festival and Theatre Children’s Choir.

The La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival

Great Festival House

After previously choreographing two movements of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in the ruins of Delphi, Sasha Waltz, Germany’s most prominent choreographer since Pina Bausch, took the entire score as the starting point for a new performance by 14 dancers.

Beethoven 7

In public and private spaces where their voices are silenced, composers and librettists find ways to persist and resist. Soprano Jeanine De Bique, who opens La Monnaie's opera season in the female title role of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, captures and decodes their journeys in a recital that celebrates the power of expression.

Silent Stories: A Grain of Light

 G G G, E flat … This short motif, among the most memorable in the history of music, opens Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. Often associated, apocryphally, with the image of ‘fate knocking at the door’, these four notes became, for the composer, the driving force behind countless dramatic effects, by turns tempestuous, lyrical, playful or triumphant.

Beethoven Freedom & Fate

BOZAR

When two young people in Verona first set eyes on each other, their lives are changed forever. They know they are destined for each other, even though their families are sworn enemies due to a blood feud. Their tragic fate is therefore inevitable.

Roméo et Juliette

In turn a symbol of freedom, imagination, escape and independence, the vagabond has haunted the imagination of artists and poets as well as philosophers. In the work of Robert Schumann, he takes the form of a lonely minstrel who asks his king for a simple cup of wine; in that of Gustav Mahler, that of a saint who speaks to animals. And while Richard Strauss takes you on nocturnal wanderings, Francis Poulenc gives you a taste of a painter’s Parisian ‘vie de bohème’.

A Vagabond’s daydream

Vienna, early twentieth century. Under pressure from industrialization, the rise of psychoanalysis and growing social tensions, familiar world views are losing their footing and the refined styles of the fin de siècle their lustre. In music, literature and the visual arts, the boundaries of expression are being radically pushed back. Composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Alexander von Zemlinsky each sought, in their own way, a new sound idiom, rooted in late Romanticism but unmistakably turned towards the future. During this concert, Alain Altinoglu will showcase three of their masterpieces, all written at this turning point in European cultural history.

Vienna

When composer Alban Berg saw Georg Büchner’s fragmentary theatre text performed in 1914, it inspired him to create an absolute masterpiece. Raw and unfiltered, Wozzeck shows us the dehumanization of a vulnerable individual who craves recognition and connection but is systematically rejected and abused.

Wozzeck

From Scarpia in Tosca’s Rome to Sinatra’s New York, New York!, for Lucio Gallo it is all within vocal reach. Before conquering the world’s great opera stages, the Italian baritone honoured the timeless songs of ‘Ol’ Blue Eyes’ in smoky bars and small cafés.

Fly me to the Moon

 Jeanine De Bique, artist in residence in Brussels this season, joins the Grammy-winning ensemble Apollo’s Fire and conductor Jeannette Sorrell to explore the historical connections between Europe and the Caribbean colonies in the eighteenth century. Across the waters, tales of love, despair and resilience emerge – with surprising resonance for today.

Echoes Across the Atlantic

BIG BANG is landing in La Monnaie! After more than 30 years, this two-day festival has become an international reference thanks to its unique mix of daring musical theatre, intimate listening rooms, interactive installations and fantastic fanfares. On their journey of discovery, children are treated to a colourful musical programme, but they don’t just have to sit still and listen. BIG BANG is also, and above all, a festival that invites you to discover and take part – after all, there is something to experience in every corner of our opera house. Big and Bangin’, right?

Big Bang Festival

On the programme is the Glosa Sinfónica Margariteña, Venezuelan composer Inocente Carreño’s tribute to his homeland. Drawing inspiration from several traditional songs such as Margarita es una Lágrima, the Canto Del Pilón, the Canto de Velorio and Los Tiguitiguitos this impressionist work ranks among the musical masterpieces of Latin America.

Hispanic Waves

Wallonie-Bruxelles Musiques

What happens when music doesn’t aim to impress but dares to feel? The great traditions fracture, making room for something rawer and deeply personal.

Erwartung

Still looking for a babysitter so that you can go to the opera? That’s a thing of the past. During Opera Family Day, you are invited to a dress rehearsal of Rossini’s La Cenerentola while your children or grandchildren can enjoy themselves at an interactive workshop based on the show. Discover the world of Cinderella together, but separately – an enchantment that will continue to work its magic long after midnight …

Opera Family Day

Subjected to humiliations by her stepsisters, Cinderella also sees her fortune squandered by her own father. But her goodness and courage win the heart of Prince Don Ramiro, who recognizes her true worth.

La Cenerentola

This is the starting point of this wonderful one-woman cabaret in which mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti sings of the highs and lows of love in a range of musical styles: opera arias from Carmen and Samson et Dalida, songs by Maurice Ravel and Erik Satie, as well as chansons by Jacques Brel and a dash of Buena Vista Social Club. In playful interaction with the audience, she proves that the best date is still the one with music.

About Last Night

As December draws to an end, with days growing shorter and trees shedding their leaves, winter sets in with the first chills and furtive sunlight. To ease into the season gently, let yourself be transported by the Women’s Choir of La Monnaie who, under the direction of Emmanuel Trenque, present a programme of Christmas carols that is as rich as it is eclectic.

Christmas Carols

In 1926 the 28-year-old George Gershwin travelled to the French capital, determined to study under Maurice Ravel. Their meeting was warm, but lessons were out of the question – ‘Why should you be a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?’ And so Gershwin crossed the pond again, taking the sound of a few Parisian taxi horns home as a souvenir. Two years later, he incorporated them into the orchestration of An American in Paris, a vibrant ode to life in the City of Light. The bustling boulevards, the tourist hotspots along the banks of the Seine, the cafés and Parisian nightlife: he translated all the impressions of his stay into a colourful and rhythmically irresistible rhapsody with a jazzy touch.

New Year’s Concert

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his last three symphonies in a great tidal wave of creative energy in 1788. The foaming crests of that wave encapsulate not only his talent, but also the history of symphonic music until that time. Sorrow and sensuality are intertwined throughout Symphony No. 40 – in the dramatic key of G minor – whereas the fundamental key of C major predicts the epic nature of his final ‘Jupiter’ Symphony.

Mozart

To mark Lithuania’s presidency of the European Council, a Lithuanian star cast is heading to Brussels, with tenor Edgaras Montvidas and soprano Asmik Grigorian, voted Female Singer of the Year (at the 2025 International Opera Awards).

Asmik Grigorian & Edgaras Montvidas

Thus begins Lucidity, a psychological drama about Lili, who suffers from dementia. Once a celebrated composer and singing teacher, she now depends on her son, Dante, who has given up his music career to care for her. Dr Klugman’s neurological research into the relationship between music and memory brings them into contact with a young clarinettist, Sunny. Marked by loss, the four characters are connected by music.

Lucidity

The richest man in Vienna is treating his guests to a spectacular celebration. For the occasion, he has commissioned a new opera seria, Ariadne auf Naxos. On the evening of the premiere, the composer discovers to his horror that he has to share the bill with a buffet, a comedy and a fireworks display. And as if that weren’t bad enough, the host introduces a change of plan: because the fireworks have to start on time, the tragedy and comedy are to be performed, not one after the other, but simultaneously! In this highly original opera, ‘high’ and ‘low’ art thus compete for the audience’s attention.

Ariadne auf Naxos

War affects everyone. Together with pianist Eric Schneider, soprano Anna Prohaska gives voice to those who leave and those who stay behind, those who flee and those who die. Intimate lieder by Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf are interwoven with the trenchant modernism of composers such as Hanns Eisler and Charles Ives: as a born storyteller, Prohaska forges their soldier tales into a many-voiced whole.

Behind the Lines

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker explores Philip Glass’s minimalist debuts through four early pieces – Music in Contrary Motion, Music in Fifths, Music in Similar Motion and Music with Changing Parts – composed between 1969 and 1970, after he had met Ravi Shankar.

Gla55

Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles

A prince on a mission, a curious bird catcher and a formidable queen who sings formidably high: step into the world of Die Zauberflöte! During our annual narrative concerts, young spectators open both their ears and their eyes wide. This season, conductor Alain Altinoglu, the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and singers from the MM Academy will take you on a journey through Mozart’s most beloved opera classic. Mark this Saturday in your family calendar for all Pa-pa-papagenos and Pa-pa-papagenas aged 8 and up.

Mozart for Kids

An invisible thread connects the troubadours and trobairitz of the Middle Ages to today’s singer songwriters: centuries of melodic echoes and a shared tradition of storytelling through music. Named Opera Singer of the Year 2025 at the prestigious Opus Klassik awards, mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo draws on this heritage to create an original recital, dedicated in particular to the works of Henry Purcell, John Dowland, the Countess of Dia and Adrian Ira. As she engages in dialogue with a piano and electric guitar, she is bound to leave you … pleasantly haunted.

Pleasantly Haunted

Grammy Award-winning tenor Freddie Ballentine and pianist Kunal Lahiry share a commitment to amplifying Black and queer experiences through song. In collaboration with voguing artists from the Belgian ballroom community, they invite listeners on an intrepid musical journey – moving through isolation, damnation, remembrance and revolution – before arriving at their final destination: hope. The programme is as dazzling as its performers: Nina Simone, Franz Schubert, Ricky Ian Gordon, Margaret Bonds and more.

Our People

Five soft drumbeats and a restrained orchestral introduction usher in a violin concerto full of timeless lyricism. Three ominous series of brass chords signal the coming symphony will not escape the grip of fate. Ludwig van Beethoven and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the masters of opening bars?

Beethoven / Tchaikovsky

Everything is new when you are a toddler. In Hatched!, Minute Papillon invites tiny tots to explore the world through sound, voice and movement. Water murmurs, the wind whispers, fire crackles and our feet make the earth resonate: everything around us can become music. But what is that mysterious object bang in the middle of the stage? Discover it step by step with your little ones – and with Bach, Mozart, Landi and Rossini as your musical companions.

Hatched!

Men and women of flesh and blood take centre stage in Cavalleria rusticana as in Pagliacci. Reality becomes theatre and, when the masks come off, theatre becomes reality. In both of these short works, obsessive love and jealousy give rise to violent emotions and passionate musical outbursts. When they brought rural Italy to the opera stage, Pietro Mascagni and Ruggero Leoncavallo inaugurated verismo in music. Director Damiano Michieletto is reprising his 2018 production, which made a lasting impression with its powerful neo-realist transposition to an Italian village in the mid-twentieth century. For her debut at La Monnaie, conductor Alevtina Ioffe promises to bring out the emotional depth of these scores with their unparalleled dramatic force.

Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci

On 22 September 2015, Renfrew County (Ontario, Canada) was shocked by the murder of three women, all former partners of the perpetrator. The horrific crimes left deep scars on the close-knit rural community of Ottawa Valley, where baritone Joshua Hopkins grew up. His sister, Nathalie Warmerdam, was one of the victims. In collaboration with composer Jake Heggie and author Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale), he turned his grief into Songs for Murdered Sisters, a deeply moving indictment of all forms of gender-based violence.

Loved / Lost

„Alle Menschen werden Brüder“: if Friedrich Schiller’s idealistic — and today particularly urgent — motto has been ingrained in our collective memory, then it is largely thanks to the Ninth Symphony. Based on a simple, recognizable melody, Ludwig van Beethoven builds up a masterful series of variations in his final movement that conveys Schiller’s hopeful Ode to Joy.

Beethoven Symphony 9

In Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, a traveller wounded by unrequited love treks through a desolate winter landscape, longing for the restfulness of death. This song cycle is one of the composer’s last and one of his most poignant. In the concentrated format of the lied, he succeeds as no one else in suggesting a wide spectrum of emotions, from intense desire to a bottomless sense of conflict and abandonment.

Winterreise

In Mao’s China, French diplomat René Gallimard is enchanted by the captivating opera singer Song Liling. The two begin a passionate affair that lasts twenty years, until they are arrested. In court, it is revealed that all this time, unbeknown to Gallimard, Song was not only a man in drag, but also a Chinese spy who passed on information about the war in Vietnam.

M. Butterfly

You may remember Antonio Salieri as the man accused of killing Mozart in the film Amadeus. But that is in fact unthinkable, as historical research has proved. In reality, Mozart and Salieri held each other in mutual respect.

Falstaff

Thousands of miles. The distance between classical music and jazz or cabaret? Or between the Old World and the New? Taking Kurt Weill as their core artist, mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey and pianist Baptiste Trotignon bridge this expanse effortlessly. In their suitcases? Music brimming with homesickness and longing, not only by Weill, but also by Alma Mahler, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, three other composers who left their homeland for America on the eve of World War II.

Thousands of Miles

You begin your journey at one of several meeting points across the city. Guided by a specially designed mobile app, you move through the streets while listening to fragments of a work by composer Huang Ruo, whose opera M. Butterfly  you can discover this season at La Monnaie.

City of Floating Sounds

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui was a teenager when his father died. Thirty years later, now a world-renowned choreographer, he searched in vain for his father’s grave in an overcrowded cemetery in Tangier. Today he continues to search for him in this very personal creation, developed in collaboration with the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève and Eastman.

Ihsane

In 2027 the Queen Elisabeth Competition, one of the world’s most prestigious music competitions, will once again be dedicated to the voice. From 9 May to 2 June, an international jury composed of opera professionals will gather in Brussels to seek out the stars of tomorrow.

Queen Elisabeth Competition

Based on George Orwell’s 1934 debut novel, Burmese Days is set in a small town of Upper Burma, present-day Myanmar. Librettist Sarah Howe and composer Prach Boondiskulchok situate their retelling in the latter years of British occupation, around a Europeans-only clubhouse. When this closed circle is forced to admit a single Burmese member, tensions rise. Social echo chambers, political manipulations and romantic entanglements create further complications.

Burmese days

Russia, at the dawn of the seventeenth century. Following the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry, son of Ivan the Terrible, the people long for a ruler who can put an end to hunger and oppression. Boyar Boris Godunov is installed on the throne, but doubts about his involvement in the murder undermine his power. He himself is consumed by remorse …

Boris Godunov

Ludwig van Beethoven expressed all his love for nature in his Pastoral Symphony. Inspired by the country walks he was so fond of taking, the composer peppered his score with bucolic evocations, shepherds’ songs, murmuring streams and a raging thunderstorm. Complementing this summery score are Le Tombeau de Couperin, a musical homage by Maurice Ravel to friends killed during World War I, and Bohuslav Martinů’s Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola, a subtle blend of fantasy, sensitivity and lightness.

La Monnaie / De Munt

Apr 24 - Jun 19, 2026

Concertini

May 15, 2026 - Jun 18, 2027

Young Opera Nights

Jun 4 - Sep 10, 2026

Inside the Music

Jun 13, 2026

Chasing Rainbows

Jun 17 - Jul 1, 2026

Tosca

May 8, 2026

Furioso

Apr 30, 2026

Xavier Sabata

La Monnaie / De Munt