Emma Posman

Finding the right librettos was not easy, but one month after the end of the First World War, his triptych – the grim tragedy Il tabarro, the lyrical and sensitive Suor Angelica, and the comedy Gianni Schicchi – premiered in New York. Three different eras, three different settings, three different ‘colours’; though for Puccini, it is through the contrasts between them that the unity of the work is revealed. For his second time directing at La Monnaie, Tobias Kratzer preserves the original order of the pieces, while weaving them together to form a narrative whole, like a circle with no end. With a cast of artists from the extended La Monnaie family, Alain Altinoglu is the ideal conductor to meet the daunting challenges posed by this triptych.

A magical opera, a Singspiel, a comedy with spectacular stage effects, a Masonic ritual intertwined with Egyptian mysteries, a heroic-comic opera? "The Magic Flute" has been heard, performed, discussed, scrutinised and questioned more often than almost any other work in the history of opera. But this time, they’ve really outdone themselves... .

Cambio madre por moto is a chamber opera by the Belgian composer, Frank Nuyts to an original libretto by the best-selling Spanish author Rosa Montero. With a light touch and in contemporary Spanish, Rosa Montero’s funny libretto tells the story of a husband and wife who want to divorce and discuss this with their children for the first time. To make matters worse, the husband’s mother and the lawyer turn up. The latter is a family friend and a specialist divorce lawyer, but he turns out to be rather closer to the mother than expected; all ingredients for incisive dialogues full of familiar arguments back and forth. ‘The children come first!’ is the parents’ mantra, but whether this is actually the case remains to be seen…