Podium 19, a new virtual stage on which a number of Flemish and Brussels art institutions will broadcast their performances, was launched on January 21st. La Monnaie supports this new cultural channel, that you can watch either online or via cable, with its opera Die tote Stadt featuring in the programme.
Though Belgian playhouses, theatres and concert halls are still closed at the moment, behind the scenes artists are working away on new creations. Once it was clear that it will be a while before a live audience gets to see the fruits of all that hard work, the Flemish art institutions came up with the Podium 19 project: a new channel on which they can deliver their productions to the general public. From January 21st you can satisfy your hunger for culture from your armchair every day with premières on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays (at 9 pm) and on Sundays (at 5 pm).
As a federal culture institution, La Monnaie supports this initiative. Our opera Die tote Stadt will be broadcast on January 23rd and will then be available for a month on VRT NU, the video-on-demand platform of the Flemish public broadcaster. Is this the end?, our digital opener of the current opera season, can be seen on this channel later in February.
Podium 19 can be viewed on channel 19 of Proximus Pickx, channel 99 of Telenet TV and on channel 20 of Orange TV, and you can catch up on programmes on the VRT NU website and app. The website of this project carries the most up-to-date information about the programme schedule.
During a literary encounter with J. M. Coetzee on the stage of La Monnaie, Christina Scheppelmann announced that the 2003 Nobel Prize winner in Literature is writing a libretto for a new La Monnaie opera, to be premiered in the 2027–2028 season: Elizabeth Costello in limbo.
Christina Scheppelmann, who became the first female General and Artistic Director of La Monnaie this season, has been nominated for the ELLE Woman of the Year 2025 award.
On 29 September 2025, the façade of La Monnaie will turn red for World Heart Day. With this symbolic gesture, our opera house joins a global movement raising awareness about cardiovascular diseases.
