Nederlandse Reisopera with a musical. With Sanne Wallis de Vries. In Royal Theatre Carré.

No, the company is not afraid of competition. Nor of cooperation, as evidenced by the jubilantly received Fairy queen with Veenfabriek and Combattimento, the orchestra led until recently by Jan Willem de Vriend.

Combattimento? That orchestra was supposed to quit, wasn't it?

Indeed, it looked like that for a while when Jan Willem de Vriend announced his intention to focus on the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, but without its founder, the orchestra made a successful restart. As did the Reisopera, which surprised friend and foe alike with Tristan und Isolde, Il barbiere di Siviglia and Fairy queen, with a reprise of Bach's St John Passion and the multimedia opera The News still ahead.

Meanwhile, the soloists of the future were getting ready for next year, according to the presentation of the new season. Two members of the solo ensemble take on key roles in Gluck's Orphée et Euridyce. Like Bizet's Pearl fishermen no construction day. A major cost saving, which the Reisopera already achieved this season with Il barbiere di Siviglia.

The biggest surprise in the new season, however, is Sweeney Todd, starring Sanne Wallis de Vries.

[Tweet " Wait a minute. Sweeney Todd, that's a musical isn't it?"]

Not quite. 'A musical thriller in two acts' Stephen Sondheim himself called it and since its premiere in 1979, the play has also been performed by renowned opera houses like Covent Garden. Johnny Depp played the role of the 'demon barber' inimitably in the film adaptation and in our country too, Sweeney Todd was already a huge success with 225 performances in the hands of, who else, Joop van den Ende.

'It's definitely not a musical,' artistic director Nicolas Mansfield tells us. 'In the nineteenth century we would call it operetta, another century before that Singspiel. It is musical theatre, just like opera, just like Purcell's semi-opera that we are now performing together with the Veenfabriek.'

Piquant is the location of the season presentation: not in home town Enschede, but in the financially troubled Royal Theatre Carré, a stone's throw from the National Opera. The reason soon becomes clear: where in the past the Dutch Reisopera brought its productions to Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg, they are now to be seen at Carré. Several times.

And so also Sweeney Todd. A musical thriller, brought by an opera company from the basic infrastructure, in the city where even the theatre of musical king Joop van den Ende is finding it increasingly difficult. Especially with the arrival of yet another competitor: the new theatre of Soldier of Orange creator Theu Boermans.

Is a musical war developing in the capital?

[Tweet " Will the Dutch Reisopera give Carré new momentum and audiences?"]

And what does this mean for the City Theatre and director Melle Daamen?

to be continued...