Next Opera Days
Multidisciplinary creation has changed considerably in recent years, prompting artists to explore new musical and theatrical languages. Ars Musica, the international biennial for contemporary music, closely follows these innovative developments. Next Opera Days creates space for song and storytelling in all its forms, from realistic works to dreamlike creations. The operas are developed with Belgian and international artists from the worlds of theatre and opera.
This second edition explored new dimensions of opera, a genre known for its interdisciplinary nature.
“You are our last innocence”
- Romain Gary, Lettre à l’Éléphant (1968)
At the tips of an octopus’s tentacles, a dog’s snout or a spider’s legs, an immense world unfolds. Or rather, an immeasurable number of worlds exist: sound, vibrations, currents and colours beyond the reach of our senses.
Today, philosophers such as Baptiste Morizot, Vinciane Despret and Pascale Seys are exploring animal themes, reminding us that we are a “species among other species”. They investigate the poetic nature of animals and their relationship with beauty for beauty’s sake, without purpose. In doing so, they break with the 19th- and 20th-century competitive, goal-oriented and production-driven view of evolution, shaped from a predominantly rationalist and male academic perspective.
In 2025, an animal featured in all the productions and their dramaturgy. In Fanto et Lou, a baby elephant serves as a metaphor for an African migrant, a moving image for young audiences. In Lost & Found, a parrot brings to life the fate of a deceased ornithologist. In Fauves, a traumatic and maiming encounter with a bear leads to an anthropological exploration of our relationship with wild animals. Finally, in HAPPYTIME, the characters exchange their humanity for animalistic instincts, in a quest for paradise lost and a happy life.
Was this merely a coincidental thematic overlap in the programme… or a sign of a topical theme that inspires artists? Music is by nature sensitive and fleeting, and could not possibly remain blind to the questions and cultural shifts that challenge the old Renaissance hierarchy (human > animal > plant). A hierarchy that places humans at the top of the living world, whilst simultaneously excluding them from it.
As Romain Gary wrote in his Lettre à l’Éléphant:
“It seems increasingly likely that we have behaved towards other species, yours in particular, in the same way we are about to behave towards ourselves.”
