Forgotten Dutch operas at Kröller-Müller

The Kröller-Müller Museum does not immediately associate you with classical music. Yet on Sunday afternoon, 29 May, I attended a concert at this institution located in the Veluwe forests. It was organised by the Helene Kröller-Müller Fund in association with 401 Dutch operas. This organisation aims to bring forgotten and never-performed opera' from the Netherlands and Flanders (back) into the spotlight. On this occasion, arias and duets were performed from the period when Helene Kröller-Müller (1869-1939) built the art collection of the museum named after her.

Dutch music of the late nineteenth, early twentieth century seems hot again. For example, the festival brought The Muse of South recently played pieces by composers after whom a street was named in Amsterdam Zuid. For instance by Cornelis Dopper, Daniël de Lange, Julius Röntgen and Gerard von Brucken-Fock, who were also on the podium on Sunday. They signed for some of the nearly five hundred operas composed in the Low Countries from 1680 onwards. No small number and most have been forgotten, or never even performed.

For example, have you ever heard of Jozal (1910-12) by Von Brucken-Fock of Helga van Stavern (inspired by the Lady of Stavoren, 1912) by Jan van Gilse? Neither ever came to fruition and parts from it had their world premiere last Sunday. Interestingly, by the way, all the performers were Flemish, with the exception of Dutch bass Pieter Vis.

As a 'surprise guest', he sang a subdued lament with tenor Denzil Delaere and pianist Pieter Dhoore at the conclusion of Margareta's delusional aria from The blind girl of Cuillé Castle by Cornelis Dopper (1894). This poignant account of young Margareta (soprano Jolien de Gendt), who plunges into the ravine when her lover leaves her, was also immediately the highlight of the recital.

Due to circumstances, the hour-plus somewhat overcrowded programme did not take place in the auditorium, but in the museum restaurant. The unforgiving acoustics of this space built of concrete, glass and stone certainly did not make it easy for the performers to achieve a nuanced performance, so that one impassioned aria quickly became like the next passionate duet. The violin playing of Ann Vancoillie, who performed some intermezzi together with Dhoore, also failed to take wing.

Still, it was interesting to be presented with a sampling of Dutch composing at the turn of the last century. I did not know most of these operas. Incidentally, I would not claim that we were deprived of a range of unadulterated masterpieces; real surprises were not forthcoming. With the striking constant being that the eight selected composers mostly coloured neatly within the lines, with quite predictable melodies and harmonies.

No pathos but stillness

A welcome outlier was Von Brucken-Fock, who presented bolder harmonies in his autobiographical opera Jozal, about an estimable do-gooder. Refreshing too was Dopper, who poured Margareta's despair into a quiet lament, instead of resorting to the noisy pathos in which his colleagues grossed. It is not surprising that in 1894, as an unknown youth from Stadskanaal, Dopper managed to persuade the Netherlands Opera to stage this compelling one-act. As read in the programme booklet by site manager and concert organiser René Seghers.

It is commendable that 401 Nederlandse Opera's is resurrecting such pieces lost in the depths of history, because that is the only way their quality can be judged. Making these accessible to the public, incidentally, is proving to be a monk's work, as all but one of the scores have never been published, but are in badly legible manuscripts in the archives of the Netherlands Music Institute. Scanning, deciphering and then editing the orchestral parts for piano (and sometimes violin) takes many hours, days and months.

That investment is paying off. The concert attracted great interest; now the wait is on for interested directors and opera houses. For instance, I would love to hear a new production of The blind girl of Cuillé Castle by Cornelis Dopper. - Even more fervently, I hope that the manuscripts of Belle van Zuylen's nine operas will also be resurfaced one day.