Anything for which people enter a stage.
When the Commendatore suddenly rises from his bier in the mortuary, Leporello recoils violently. He smacks painfully against the back wall, as if struck by a gust of hurricane-force wind. This cartoonish image is just one of many hilarious moments in Don Giovanni by the Nederlandse Reisopera. This production was performed after its premiere Saturday 4 March in the...
There is sound; a notion of impotence; a programme without a head or tail; there is power, chatter, compassion; there is nothing but also a vista, blurred image full of action and opposition. Moreover, the language seems a bit overwrought here and there. Of course, incoherent drivel can be cosy, or moving. Under circumstances, meaningfulness may be possible, but it will not...
The National Theatre plays Jeanne d'Arc by Friedrich Schiller and simultaneously retakes Johann Goethe's Tasso. Joris Smit plays in both plays, even the title role in Tasso. We talk to him about German romantics, Sallie Harmsen, the new-fangled National Theatre and the importance of going down on your face. Tasso and Jeanne, Goethe and Schiller. Is German romance...
Both the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the also Royal Concertgebouw seem to be focusing on connection next season. Between young and old, between east and west, between left and right, between culture and press. 'Great that you all came,' says Jan Raes after the presentation of the 2017-18 season. 'The press is under pressure, as is culture,' continues
Maybe God is dead, but His church is alive. At least in Denmark. This has to do with what you might call the Danish paradox of faith: a highly secularised society with a Lutheran Folkekirke (=Volkskerk) supported by a large majority of the population [hints]The American sociologist Phil Zuckerman has commented on this aspect of Denmark (and also a little...
The South Pole does not score high with holidaymakers. But maybe that will change, if at least many children see Ice Palace (6+) by youth dance group plan d-. Renamed 'd-travels' for the occasion, plan d- proposes an adventurous trip. It takes the dancer/tour leader with his billboard some effort to get people excited about it, but already...
A prelaunch of the Opera Forward Festival OFF [hints]From 18 to 31 March at De Nationale Opera (formerly the Muziektheater/Stopera)[/hints], among other venues, was organised last night at Amsterdam's new society Sexyland. I was impressed. Pretty surprising. Opera Nopera Disclaimer: the author of this one is not an opera director. The last two operas I saw were both by Philip Glass (the true...
It was announced today that the North Sea Jazz Club at Amsterdam's Westergasfabriek grounds is bankrupt. This is never good news, for anyone. Not even for those sourpusses who like to complain about North Sea Jazz, the club's namesake. Five years ago, it was big news: the Rotterdam-based North Sea Jazz Festival was going to open a club in Amsterdam. That was...
'Before we start the actual presentation, let me give you some facts & figures,' says Els van der Plas, general director of the National Opera & Ballet. 'No, not the alternative facts,' she adds wittily. The ghost of the US president will be through the Stopera more often this afternoon. Van der Plas recalls the successes that...
I read the biography of Jacob Israel De Haan, Onrust, by Jan Fontijn. Writer and director Gerardjan Rijnders based Salaam Jerusalem on this biography. It is this play, performed by De Nieuw Amsterdam, that really makes me realise how urgent it is to let such an almost forgotten figure as De Haan speak. Jacob Israel De Haan overturned taboos, fought...
Almost a millennium separates nun Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) from Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006). The former created heavenly chants, the latter hammered on a coffin. Yet on Thursday 23 February, they are together at a concert by the Flemish ensembles Het Collectief and Psallentes at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. Two reasons why I think that is a wonderful combo...
It will happen to you. At 70, they honour you with a CD box set, five years later you are offered a compilation twice the size. It happened to Dutch oboist Han de Vries (The Hague, 1941), who celebrated his 75th birthday last August. In 2011, his former student Peter Bree collected the radio recordings on nine CDs, this time he filled a...
Shimmering. Wondrous, ferocious. Poetic, powerful. Creative and humorous. Musical. Engaging. Layered. Spirited. A few days after my concert visit, words like these keep bubbling to the surface. And even though the Eef van Breen Group (EvBG) with Chapman for President is a typical case of 'especially go there', 'hear for yourself' and 'cannot be described', I'll make an effort. In the beginning My...
Last summer, French-Colombian collective Pixvae was the sensation of the Haarlemmer Houtfestival. Their debut was recently released through the prestigious French label Buda Musique. This week there are two Dutch shows. You can't start a day better than with Pixvae's first CD. Eight pieces only, but the energy that oozes from it is irresistible. The music of...
During the big January cleaning in my private museum, I rediscovered the book released in 2007, on the occasion of the Music Building on the IJ, which opened two years earlier. I had forgotten that it came with a CD with four pieces on it. The fourth piece is a recording of the opening speech given by Jan Wolff [hints]former director IJsbreker, more than twenty...
Ruth Mackenzie has achieved an enormous amount in the short time she has been boss of Holland Festival. I've experienced the festival now since the late 1990s and watched it evolve from something very personal and sometimes obscure (under Ivo van Hove), to an ethereal feast of sizzling aesthetics (with Pierre Audi), to what it...
Alan Gilbert conducted the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for the fifth time on Wednesday 8 February. He is chief of the New York Philharmonic until the end of this season, exuberantly expressing his love for contemporary music. He proved to be the ideal conductor to premiere Joey Roukens' new work, aptly leading the musicians through the exhilarating...
'Unleashing war is the best way to escape from yourself,' we read on the gauze screen in front of the Stopera stage. Then the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra begins Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor. A catchy one-liner, but it raises expectations that are not met. Musically, too, this co-production of De Nationale Opera and the New...
The performance PARA | DISO Revisited is hard to get out of your system. The sneering angel, the ecstasy of the female dancers, the noble classical knight. And sublime dance. Man, man, man. La Divina Commedia revisited PARA | DISO Revisited is a reworking of youPARA | DISO from 2010. The work concludes a series of four volumes inspired by Dante Alighieri's...
From a country where a giraffe is dissected for children as a holiday attraction, you don't have to expect a sugary pink Disney opera. And so Intet (= Nothing) is not. Think Lord of the Flies, place of action: a peaceful Danish village. Also think Søren Kierkegaard - because philosophy. Also by no means a buffoon. The story Intet is based on the eponymous...
The theme of this final day of the Moving Futures festival sounds and somewhat theoretical: self-reflection and cultural identity. But in the abundant programme, it becomes clear how directly these words touch everyone. Macho Macho That is immediately clear in Macho Macho by Bosnian-Dutch theatre maker Igor Vrebac. In it, two performers seek their way in a world of male idealism....
Choreographer Arthur Rosenfeld bid farewell (for now) to a long dance career on 5 February 2017. One that relies mostly on his wife, dancer Ana Teixido. Such a farewell does not go without a fight with Rosenfeld. Leaving the field for another, who really wants that? Exit pursued by a bear, based on an eccentric directorial cue from Shakespeare, continues until the...
On Friday 10 February in Utrecht, the Nederlands Kamerkoor will kick off its concert series Sacred and Profane, based on Benjamin Britten's choral work of the same name. The programme also includes his popular cycle Hymn to St Cecilia, which he composed during World War II. The score was confiscated by the US Customs Service in 1942 because it allegedly contained codes that were dangerous to the state. The American fear of a...
If there is one subject that has been endlessly elaborated on in dance, it is the many ways in which people form relationships with each other. Still, it is good that Moving Futures has put this theme firmly at the centre of the third day of the festival. It is inexhaustible, can always inspire in new ways and even in a...
Dance and technology. That is the theme on the second day of the Moving Futures festival. After seeing this broadly composed programme, I no longer doubt that there is such a thing as 'progress in art'. This is not just about the new means artists can use to shape their work. The...
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