As the 30-year-old Smashing Pumpkins classic turns 31, Billy Corgan takes reimagined operatic arrangements through Europe.
Corgan opened the European leg of A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness with two performances at De Doelen in Rotterdam on Saturday (8/29) and Sunday (8/30). Instead of the familiar Smashing Pumpkins lineup, he was joined by the Belgian chamber orchestra Casco Phil, a choir and operatic vocalists, bringing more than 100 musicians and singers into the production.
The program transformed selections from the 28-track Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995), with conductor and arranger James Lowe rebuilding songs such as “Thirty-Three,” “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” “Zero” and “1979” for orchestra and voices. Corgan appeared on only five of the 20 songs, allowing the arrangements to carry a show that followed his seven performances at Chicago’s Lyric Opera in 2025.