FANNY AND ALEXANDER (Karlsson) Brussels 2024 Thomas Hampson, Susan Bullock, Loa Falkman
In this video
FANNY AND ALEXANDER by Mikael Karlsson
Royal Theatre of La Monnaie, Brussels, Belgium
December 2024
CAST:
Susan Bullock — Helena Ekdahl
Peter Tantsits — Oscar Ekdahl
Sasha Cooke — Emilie Ekdahl
Sarah Dewez — Fanny
Jay Weiner — Alexander
Thomas Hampson — Bishop Edvard Vergerus
Anne Sofie von Otter — Justina
Loa Falkman — Isak Jacobi
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen — Ismael
Alexander Sprague — Aron
Justin Hopkins — Carl Ekdahl
Polly Leech — Lydia
Gavan Ring — Gustav Adolf Ekdahl
Margaux de Valensart — Alma Ekdahl
Marion Bauwens — Paulina
Blandine Coulon — Esmeralda
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Ariane Matiakh — Conductor
La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra
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Ivo van Hove — Stage director
Jan Versweyveld — Set designer, lighting
An D’Huys — Costume Designer
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Christmas Eve. Staff are just finishing trimming the splendid Christmas tree at the Ekdahl family home in Sweden. The Ekdahls run the local theatre and the young Fanny and Alexander also seem to have been born for the stage. The living room soon fills with the sound of laughter and clinking glasses as well as delicious smells. In the early hours, as the hubbub subsides to naughty giggles and the inebriated guests crawl under the covers (with or without their own partners), the children dream at the spectacle of their magic lantern. Nothing suggests that all warmth will soon disappear from their lives when their father Oscar dies unexpectedly and their mother Emilie soon gets married again, this time to the authoritarian bishop Edvard Vergérus. He is keen to discipline the children and rid Alexander of his vivid fantasies, harshly if necessary …
Ingmar Bergman’s semi-autobiographical film Fanny och Alexander (1982) comes to life on the opera stage, in a creation by composer Mikael Karlsson and librettist Royce Vavrek. A grandiose family chronicle demands grandiose means. For her debut at La Monnaie, conductor Ariane Matiakh will turn her attention to a score that combines the acoustic sound of a symphony orchestra with ingenious surround electronics, commanding a cast of sixteen soloists, among whom none other than Thomas Hampson and Anne Sofie von Otter. Director Ivo Van Hove, who is intimately familiar with Bergman’s work, will dig deep into the soul of his characters and, together with scenographer Jan Versweyveld, will create scenes that gradually unfold into a spectral hall of mirrors. A fantasy world that stubbornly goes against harsh reality – and may ultimately overcome it.
Quoted from La Monnaie