At the start of De Munt's new 2024-2025 season presentation, it immediately became clear why the press conference had been postponed. There was a "last-minute" change in programming. And what a change! The completion of the Ring project will have to proceed without director Romeo Castellucci.
The final two parts Siegfried and Götterdämmerung will be handled by a true Wagner specialist, Pierre Audi. Castellucci requested more time and especially more money. When you hire a controversial theater maker like this Italian, you can expect anything, but De Munt could not afford a second Mortier-style financial drain. It was his intention to turn Siegfried into an "operatic feature film". Götterdämmerung was to be spread out as a dual opera and theater project.
The scheduling of the planned cast was already fixed, and the director's ambitions did not fit within the budget: too long, too expensive, according to artistic director Peter de Caluwe. Exit Castellucci. Still, he wanted to realize the Ring he had begun within his mandate and called on his friend Pierre Audi for help. Audi brought a historic Ring to Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, was its director for years, and worked there with Peter de Caluwe. Thus the conclusion of the Castellucci Ring faces an uncertain future.
New season slogan: "Dare to hope"
The De Munt intendant showed himself very disappointed, but on the other hand looked back proudly on his past years. At the end of June 2025, his term comes to an end. During those 20 years, the Brussels opera house under his leadership successfully survived many crises, even the economic one, the covid months, and an extra-muros period at Thurn und Taxis. The house has been renovated, rejuvenated: "I am the last of the Mohicans from the Gerard Mortier era," De Caluwe said. Above all, De Munt has established its reputation as a House of Creations. In his final year, De Caluwe wants to present, alongside Monteverdi and Wagner, new creations and new composers. He even revisits Monteverdi, as happened this season with the first Verdi operas bundled in a new narrative. A remix of his three operas, reconstructed in a musical dramaturgy by Leonardo Garcia Alarcon, becomes Grotteschi.
A world premiere comes with Fanny and Alexander, based on the family drama that Ingmar Bergman filmed. New music by Swedish composer Mikael Karlsson, who also composed an opera based on Lars von Trier's unsettling cult film Melancholia. That will be directed by Ivo van Hove. The Liège composer Harold Noben was commissioned to turn Madame Bovary into an opera, together with director Michel De Kock, who had already adapted it into a theater piece.
Do you remember the covid period in 2022, when De Munt cancelled Carmen? Too many staff members and artists had caught the omicron variant. Carmen returns in the direction originally planned by Dmitri Tcherniakov, with conductor Nathalie Stutzmann. A delighted De Caluwe added that you must dare to look fate in the eye. Truly a gamble.
- WHAT: Dare to Hope, presentation of De Munt's new 2024-2025 season
- WHO: Peter de Caluwe, general and artistic director De Munt; via video Alain Altinoglu, music director De Munt
- WHERE: De Munt, Brussels
- WHEN: April 20, 2024.
- PHOTOS: © Simon Van Rompay
