Mint
One of the most interesting evenings out I've had in a while was a guided tour last week of La Monnaie, Brussel's famous opera house, as part of my Dutch course. As well as a visit to the theatre itself with its beautiful Josepeh Poelaert interiors, the tour also encompassed a trip to the nearby seven-storey building where the opera company rehearses, makes and stores its costumes and builds its sets. For someone used to the mend and make do nature of amateur theatre, the sheer scale of the operation is quite something to behold. For instance, La Monnaie has 12 full-time employees making women's costumes and three full-time shoemakers. It also has a fabulous (one-tenth scale) working model of the opera house at Bayreuth in Germany. Sadly, seeing one of the La Monnaie's productions is rather more difficult than seeing its buildings: some 80% of all tickets go to season-ticket holders and the remainder are, as you can imagine in a world-class opera house that holds less than 1,200 people, highly sought after.
posted by Justin Toland at 1:51 am
1 Comments:
As a long-standing (14 years) subscription-holder at the opera in Antwerp, I have found the productions at the Monnaie staid, tame and rather dull in comparison. For a fresh innovative look and a less traditional repertoire Antwerp is hard to beat. On the few occassions I have purchased tickets at the Monnaie from colleagues with subscriptions I have found its reputation more inflated than it deserves, so don't feel bad about not being able to sample its wares - instead, and this would be of infinitely greater utility in terms of practicing your Flemish - try to pick up a ticket at Antwerp (even on the day subscribers whose companions have been unable to attend sell off their unused tickets), a more interesting experience by far.
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