Love La Monnaie

Been extremely busy! Will blog Friday night... Many things to blog about but the most important is that my dear and beloved La Monnaie/De Munt and the amazing Peter de Caluwe won the title of the BEST OPERA HOUSE IN 2010-2011. Together with the Komische Oper Berlin and Theater Basel this is definitely the most exciting and artistically invigorating opera house in the world and I am more than happy that Opernwelt acknowledged it.  Congrats and thank you to all the great and competent stuff of La Monnaie.

This is the kind of prize that falls regularly in right hands. I didn't blog about Les Huguenots (the best production of 2010-2011) but I will soon (next weekend). Die Passagierin also received a prize (very deserved as well -- too bad the London crowd prefered Puccini and Gounod to the fascinating life story and highly non-trivial Shostakovich-kind music by Moisey Weinberg). SUPERB Wozzeck by Andrea Breth in Berlin, and wonderful Rusalka by Kusej in Munich got their honorable mention too...

So all good stuff got honored by this prestigeous selection committee.  And yes, congrats to our beloved tiny Urbain from Les Huguenots -- Julia Lezhneva -- the best young singer of 2010-2011!