Le Grand Macabre

In 1934, Michel de Ghelderode, a bilingual native of Brussels, wrote La balade du Grand Macabre in French, a surrealist drama with apocalyptic tones which takes place in Breugellande, a kingdom populated by monsters and picturesque peasants. György Ligeti and Michael Meschke worked wonders by making an opera adaptation of this play. They were able to use the absurd, obscene and poetic language of Ghelderode to create an opera which was at once morbid and hilarious, inspired by the imaginary world of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brueghel. Ligeti humorously described his Grand Macabre as being an 'anti-anti-opera', at a time when the European musical avant-garde turned its nose up at a genre felt to be outmoded. Today, Le Grand Macabre is considered to be a major milestone in the history of opera. This is the first time it will be performed at La Monnaie.