#hello_monaco weekend: what to do on February 19th and February 20th

We hope you are already relaxing and having a great start of your weekend. And HelloMonaco is ready with a few suggestion.

All those who admire and adore classical music will enjoy the Grand Season Series: piano recital with Francesco Piemontesi performing pieces by Franz Schubert, Helmut Lachenmann, Sergei Rachmaninov and Claude Debussy on Saturday 19 February 2022, at 8 pm in Auditorium Rainier III.

One more music event to enjoy is “Werther” by Jules Massenet with Jean-François Borras, Jean-François Lapointe, Marc Barrard, Reinaldo Macias, Philippe Ermelier, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Jennifer Courcier, the Rainier III Academy of Music Children’s Choir and the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Henrik Nánási, organised by the Opéra de Monte-Carlo on Sunday 20 February, at 3 pm, Tuesday 22 February (gala), Thursday 24 February (for young audience) and Saturday 26 February 2022, at 8 pm in Opéra de Monte-Carlo – Salle Garnier.

The Nice Carnival  (11th to 27th February), when craziness is combined with general merriment, is an ideal festival at the end of February. Imagine the welcoming atmosphere of a mini-Rio.

The artistic geniuses behind history’s great Carnival never disappoint. But the full panoply of the gigantic puppets (“Grosses Têtes”) are to be seen to be believed. It’s as if the creators’ imaginations were let loose without any constraint and went into a hallucinogenic orgy of animation and dramatic comedy aimed to please – a sort of Disney meets DaVinci and Klimt.

For another event you would also have to make a little trip to see the Fête du Citron (Lemon Festival), that attracts more than 200,000 visitors every year. It’s simply Citrus Disneyland. 

Be awed by the splendour and grandeur of a unique citrus show, featuring IMMENSE lemon and orange sculptures for its audience to admire.

For more than 15 days, go and enjoy the most zest-flavoured of Golden parades and Night-time parades (parades of citrus floats animated by groups of entertainers ), admire the Exhibition of citrus patterns in the gardens Biovès (by day and/or night with the Gardens of lights); not forgetting the opportunity to visit the Crafts Fair and the Festival of Orchids with unforgettable scents. Go and discover this fantasy world, and move to the rhythm of a simply unforgettable event.

As always there are a few exhibitions open in Monaco. To begin with there is “Tremors, Recent Acquisitions by the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco”, an exhibition presenting for the first time a selection of artworks acquired by the NMNM between 2010 and 2021, created by 18 artists of 10 different nationalities from Thursday 25 November 2021 to Sunday 15 May 2022, in Nouveau Musée National de Monaco – Villa Paloma.

Conceived by Célia Bernasconi, Exhibition Curator, Chief Curator at the NMNM, the exhibition brings together contemporary works by seventeen living artists, including nine women, of twelve different nationalities. All of them have in common that they respond to the definition of the thought of trembling which, in the words of the poet Édouard Glissant, “unites us in absolute diversity, in a whirlwind of encounters”.

Video installations, sculptures, paintings, photographs, translate the tremors of the world.

Another exhibition open in the Principality is  Monaco – Alexandria, The Great Detour. World-Capitals and Cosmopolitan Surrealism from Friday 17 December 2021 to Monday 2 May 2022, in Nouveau Musée National de Monaco – Villa Sauber.