Triple your pleasure: Rachmaninov Troika

La Monnaie closed its doors this month for a six-month renovation. If all goes well, the Brussels opera house will celebrate its grand reopening with a Berlioz opera in early 2016. In the meantime, the historical venue continues its civilising mission by remote with an Extra Muros programme put on in collaboration with partner venues across the city. 

The in-between season’s inaugural production, Rachmaninov Troika, hosted by Théâtre National, is a doozy. Each evening features not one, not two but all three operas composed by early 20th-century Russian pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff: the gypsy tragedy Aleko, the cynical drama The Miserly Knight and the doomed love story Francesca da Rimini.

It’s an ambitious project on many levels. These one-act operas may not be marathons, but the programme still clocks in at three hours and 40 minutes (with two intermissions). There’s also the fact that times (and artistic values) have changed since 1900. As one of the last champions of Romanticism, a composer who looked to Pushkin and Dante for his themes, Rachmaninoff’s unabashedly lyrical works are rarely performed on contemporary opera stages – and certainly not back-to-back-to-back.

La Monnaie’s Troika stays true to the spirit of Rachmaninoff while introducing contemporary elements. The cast, some of whom appear in multiple roles throughout the performance(s), are almost entirely native Russian speakers. La Monnaie’s house orchestra is led by guest conductor Mikhail Tatarnikov of St Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theatre.

The scenography, on the other hand, has been outsourced to Scandinavia. Danish director Kirsten Dehlholm and her company Hotel Pro Forma frame Rachmaninoff’s timeless themes in innovative ways. Dehlholm and her partners at La Monnaie are especially keen to adapt the conventional opera form to the unique architecture of Théâtre National. (In Russian with surtitles in Dutch and French)

16-30 June, Théâtre National, Brussels