Ingmar Bergman Cycle
21.11 › 19.12
One of the highlights of the season is La Monnaie’s operatic staging of Ingmar Bergman’s magnum opus Fanny and Alexander. This new creation pays tribute to an artist who effortlessly steered a course between film, theatre, television and even opera. Following in the wake of his cross-genre artistry, this autumn a number of Brussels’ cultural institutions and cinemas are joining forces for a Bergman cycle.
Theatre • Après la répétition / Persona
21.11 > 23.11 • FR (ENG subs.) • Théâtre National
Two visions of theatre and art collide. Après la répétition (After the Rehearsal) tells the story of a man who can’t tear himself away from the rehearsal room, a man for whom the theatre is quite simply synonymous with life. Persona, on the other hand, is about an actress who has lost her footing in life, having sacrificed too much to the theatre. Ivo van Hove and a leading French cast reveal the contrasts and similarities between these typically Bergmanian plays, which ruthlessly explore the relationship between the self and art.
Opera • Fanny and Alexander
1.12 > 19.12 • ENG (NL & FR subs.) • La Monnaie
This festive season La Monnaie is bringing Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece to life on the opera stage! Besides being an expansive chronicle of early 20th-century Sweden, Fanny och Alexander is first and foremost a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story about family, courage and imagination. In this new creation, endorsed by Bergman’s heirs, director Ivo Van Hove delves deep into the soul of the sixteen characters, while composer Mikael Karlsson combines the symphonic panache of the La Monnaie Orchestra with ingenious surround electronics.
Film • The Magic Flute / Trollflöjten
2.12 • 19:00 • OV SWE (ENG subs.) • RITCS
It is almost fifty years since Ingmar Bergman put his indelible stamp on Mozart’s Singspiel The Magic Flute, which is still a yardstick for the filming of opera. Bergman preserved the childlike depiction of the amorous vicissitudes of Tamino and Pamina and of Papagena and Papageno, while at the same time developing these characters in an inimitable way, making them psychologically recognizable people of flesh and blood. For the film, which was produced by and shown on Swedish television, he recreated in the studio the baroque Drottningholm theatre near Stockholm. Ingmar Bergman Jr, the filmmaker’s son, will introduce this film screening and also have the closing word.
Film • Silence ! Action ! The Magic Flute ! / Tystnad! Tagning! Trollflöjten!
4.12 • 19:00 • OV SWE (ENG subs.) • RITCS
In 1975, Bergmans’s longtime collaborators Kantinka Faragò and Måns Reuterswärd followed the director during the production of The Magic Flute / Trollflöjten (1975). Their film provides exclusive documentary insight into the legendary filmmaker’s creative process. It was preceded by Papageno (1935), a short, black & white, silhouette animation fantasy piece by the German film director Lotte Reiniger, also inspired by Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
Film • Fanny and Alexander
7.12 • 11:00 • OV SWE (FR subs) • Cinema Galeries
Two young Swedish children in the 1900s experience the many comedies and tragedies of their lively and affectionate theatrical family, the Ekdahls. Described by Ingmar Bergman himself as “the sum total of his entire life as a filmmaker”, Fanny and Alexander is widely regarded as his magnum opus. In anticipation of the upcoming opera adaptation, revisit this 1982 theatrical version, winner of four Academy Awards.
Film • Persona
9.12 • 19:00 • OV SWE (FR subs.) • Cinema Palace
A famous actress, who has suddenly stopped speaking, rests with her nurse. A strange relationship takes shape between the two women that goes so far as to call into question each woman’s identity. Formal audacity, freely expressed impulses, refusal of a classical narrative — Bergman’s Persona is an inexhaustible film of dazzling formal perfection.
