Orchestre Symphonique de la Monnaie, Choeurs de la Monnaie & Franck Ollu
Biography Orchestre Symphonique de la Monnaie, Choeurs de la Monnaie & Franck Ollu
Franck Ollu
is a versatile conductor, widely acknowledged as an expert in the field of contemporary and French music. During the 2017/18 season he will conduct the world premiere of A Wintery Spring by Saed Haddad, with a libretto based on poems by Khalil Gibran. This is a co-commission by Oper Frankfurt and the Ensemble Modern and will be presented alongside the baroque cantata The Bronze Snake by Jan Dismas Zelenka. This season he will also conduct a revival of Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg (Lille and Rennes) and a double bill of Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero and Rihm’s Das Gehege (La Monnaie and Stuggart).
Franck Ollu is a versatile conductor, widely acknowledged as an expert in the field of contemporary and French music. During the 2017/18 season he will conduct the world premiere of A Wintery Spring by Saed Haddad, with a libretto based on poems by Khalil Gibran. This is a co-commission by Oper Frankfurt and the Ensemble Modern and will be presented alongside the baroque cantata The Bronze Snake by Jan Dismas Zelenka. This season he will also conduct a revival of Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg (Lille and Rennes) and a double bill of Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero and Rihm’s Das Gehege (La Monnaie and Stuggart).
Last season, Franck made his debut at Basel Opera (Xenakis’ The Oresteia) and the Bolshoi Opera (Benjamin’s Written on Skin) and the BBC Philharmonic. He also returned to Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin (Rihm’s Jakob Lenz). Other recent opera productions have included performances at the Netherlands Opera, Théâtre des Champs Elysées (Paris) and Théâtre du Capitole (Toulouse).
Franck has been invited to conduct the world premiere performances of many important opera titles, including Bianchi’s Thanks to My Eyes, (Festival Aix-en-Provence), Dusapin’s Penthésiléa (La Monnaie) and Passion (Festival Aix-en-Provence). He conducted the first performance of Benjamin's first opera Into the Little Hill at Opéra Bastille in 2006 with many subsequent performances with the London Sinfonietta (Aldeburgh Festival and Linbury Theatre, Covent Garden), and with Ensemble Modern in New York and major festivals in Amsterdam, Vienna, Dresden and Frankfurt. Die Wunde Heine by Helmut Oehring was performed under his baton with both Ensemble Modern (Cologne MusikTriennale) and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (Berlin Philharmonie).
His particularly close relationship with Ensemble Modern has led to numerous opera performances, including at the Salzburg Festival and of Heiner Goebbels’ Landschaft mit entfernen Verwanten at the Bockenheimer Depot in Frankfurt. They have also collaborated in orchestral repertoire, including at the Venice Biennale. Franck recently made his debut with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Opera House in Stockholm with Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, the Staatoper Berlin with Frank Martin's "Le vin herbé" and Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestras.
Franck is a committed teacher and mentor and has established relationships with the Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie and in London, at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music.
Orchestre Symphonique de la Monnaie
In 1772, the Austrian composer and conductor Ignace Vitzthumb officially founded the La Monnaie Orchestra. The ensemble, always closely involved in the opera house’s productions, developed over the years as it worked with great composers such as Richard Wagner, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, André Messager, Vincent d’Indy et Alban Berg. In the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, it took part in the first performances of a number of operas, including Massenet’s Hérodiade, Chabrier’s Gwendoline, Chausson’s Le Roi Arthus, Milhaud’s Les malheurs d'Orphée, Honneger’s Antigone, and Prokofiev’s The Gambler.
The orchestra was regularly conducted by world-famous conductors such as Hans Richter, Felix Mottl, Otto Lohse, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Josef Krips, and, more recently, Sir John Pritchard, Christoph von Dohnányi, and Kent Nagano.
Under Gerard Mortier, the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra was thoroughly revitalised in 1981 and Sylvain Cambreling (1981–1991) was appointed Music Director. He was succeeded by Sir Antonio Pappano (1992–2002), Kazushi Ono (2002–2008), and Ludovic Morlot (2012–2014).
Equally at home in the symphonic and operatic repertoires, the orchestra performs for the most part in Brussels at the Royal Opera House La Monnaie, in the Henry Le Boeuf Hall at Bozar, and in Studio 4 at Flagey, as well as on tour in Europe, the United States, and Japan.
Contemporary music figures prominently in the orchestra’s repertoire and it has collaborated, at times in first performances, with many composers, including John Adams, Luciano Berio, Philippe Boesmans, Pierre Boulez, Kris Defoort, Pascal Dusapin, Luca Francesconi, Toshio Hosokawa, Bruno Maderna, Frank Martin, Benoît Mernier, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, and Salvatore Sciarrino.
The orchestra’s dynamism and versatility have made a huge contribution to La Monnaie’s artistic identity. Their impact has grown as broadcasts of opera productions on television and radio, as well as Internet streaming, have increasingly brought the orchestra to the attention of music-lovers all over the world. Its prestige is reflected in an extensive and ever-growing discography.
Alain Altinoglu has been Music Director of the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra since January 2016.
