Fresh air at work. Four Donizetti titles shaken into one in Brussels

So far, the craziest and most successful (often overlapping characteristics at work) show of 2023 is this double Bastard, on stage at the Monnaie in Brussels until 16 April. In the end, the recipe is very simple: take Donizetti’s four operas on the “Tudori”, as he called them, i.e. Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle, Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux, shake thembuild a dramaturgy around it, add some texts in English because after all we are in England but also in Belgium and it is better not to tempt the very delicate linguistic susceptibilities of the natives, spread over two evenings (with a day off to let the singers), served hot as required by these events of love, betrayal, intrigue where heads fly with extreme ease, it must be said, and you will get a highly successful show that is not only a valuable novelty in an increasingly feeble repertoire, but could even constitute a new operatic “genre”. Indeed Peter de Caluwe, the steward of the Monnaie (fantasy in power? But then it-can-be-done!, as in Frankenstein junior), already announces a similar but not the same project for Verdi.