Anything for which people enter a stage.
Last night, Ukrainian composer Anna Korsun (1986, Donetsk) won the coveted Gaudeamus Music Prize in TivoliVredenburg. This consists of a cash prize of €4550, which serves as an honorarium for a new composition that will have its world premiere in a subsequent instalment. The international jury, consisting of composers Vanessa Lann (Netherlands), Oscar Bianchi (Switzerland) and Wim Hendericx (Belgium) chose her unanimously from...
Sunday is the Gala of Dutch Theatre. In a sober yet festive setting, the theatre sector celebrates the fact that it still exists. Quite an achievement, even if the minister doesn't think so. Be that as it may. We are going to present awards. And not Oscars, Olivers, or Césars, but Louis, Theo, Colombina and Arlecchino. How that came about? Tradition....
Tonight begins the international Gaudeamus Music Week, in which five composers under 30 compete for the coveted Gaudeamus Music Prize. The jury, consisting of Vanessa Lann, Oscar Bianchi and Wim Henderickx selected them from eighty entrants from all over the world. It is the fourth edition in Utrecht of the competition, which started in 1951 in Bilthoven; the new TivoliVredenburg serves as the festival centre....
Drama reviews mainly fill a need among artists and journalists. Newspaper readers hardly use them. In London, this has been studied. Only 36 per cent of theatre-goers say they read reviews. Much more value fans place on tips from friends and family. Last Saturday at Amsterdam's De Balie debate centre, there was a discussion between theatre-makers,...
The performance Trabe Dich, Thierlein by Graindelavoix has barely begun when the first protests sound, directed against the blinding light of a slowly rotating spotlight in the otherwise unlit Great Hall of TivoliVredenburg. Shortly afterwards, some visitors leave and gradually the trickle of runaways swells. But after more than an hour and a half, the stayers reward the Belgian ensemble with an enthusiastic...
Days after the grand scenic world premiere of Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, De Nationale Opera once again comes up with a more than remarkable production of international stature. Everything and everyone dances and sings. (1) So you think you can dance? Sure. The modern opera singer(s) is used to something. Simply stepping forward and singing your aria was outdated decades ago. And.
"Grand opening, right?" Jeffrey Meulman, the man who as director of the ailing Theatre Festival gave the word "inspired" a new dimension, was delighted. It was Thursday night, September 4, 2014. Shortly before, I had seriously considered jumping from the 1st balcony of the Stadsschouwburg, rather than applauding Tauerbach, the opening performance of The Theatre Festival. It is...
For the second consecutive year, the Festival of Early Music is organising a Laboratory, in which young creators can learn about their craft. This year's programme features Medea by Czech composer Georg Benda. This 'melodrama', an alternation of spoken text with music, was a resounding success at its premiere in 1775. Musicologist Jed Wentz and scholar Mary Helen Dupree revived it...
More than a century we had to wait, but at last Arnold Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder also to be seen. Surprisingly, it is not. Reportedly, the composer was against it, as it concerns a cantata. However, director Pierre Audi and conductor Marc Albrecht show very convincingly with this scenic world premiere that Gurre-Lieder hid an opera that yearned for the stage light.
Declining visitor numbers, shrinking subsidies, impoverished programming: most Dutch theatres are struggling, research by NRC Handelsblad recently showed. Theatres welcomed 12 million visitors in 2012, according to NRC figures, a quarter less than in 2008. Festivals, on the other hand, are on the rise. More and more are being organised, and they are attracting more and more people - in total...
Suddenly they are gone: the Dutch Symphony Orchestra's twitter account and facebook page. Searching for the new ***** name also yields nothing. Must have something to do with all sorts of lawsuits. But if you type in nederlandssymfonieorkest.nl, you happily end up at symfonieorkest.nl. Incidentally, if you type in orkestvanhetoosten.nl, that's also where you end up.
There is a world outside Amsterdam. There is culture there too. High-quality even. And of course, Amsterdammers know that too. After all, that whole world comes to Amsterdam every year for the Holland Festival, and if it were up to the director of the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg Melle Daamen, a lot more would come from abroad. Ballet, for example. Our national...
I had promised to check out a session with Benjamin Zander. Me as a non-expert, together with someone who finds classical music downright soporific. To see if Zander works, as he promises to work: "Everyone loves classical music, they just don't know it yet". The man is in the Netherlands and that doesn't happen very often. Not so long ago...
With 6.4 million views on TED, you are somebody. And so Benjamin Zander is huge somebody, because a classical conductor who can pull that off: you don't make that happen very often. So since that legendary performance, Zander has also been a hireable speaker. And author of a booklet. [bol_product_links block_id=”bol_53f85f2c62b17_selected-products” products=”1001004001757262,1000004001281876,1001004010676431″ name="zander" sub_id=""" link_color="003399″ subtitle_color="000000″ pricetype_color="000000″ price_color="CC3300″ deliverytime_color="009900″ background_color="FFFFFF" border_color="D2D2D2″ width="250″ cols="1″...
So the building is a bit redundant, well considered. After years of drawing, tug-of-war and plans for a new venue complex in the city centre of The Hague, local politicians blew off the Spui Forum earlier this year. Now, I'm sure there will have been all kinds of criticisms of that building plan, but the consequences of the lokalos blowing it off are not...
The 300-strong audience stood up as one after Leonard Bernstein's infectious performance of Candide at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam last night. The performance of this 'pocket version' of Bernstein's cheerful musical/opera about the incorrigible optimist Candide, produced by the Nationale Reisopera, took place indoors, in the hotel's ballroom, due to the weather conditions. After all, the Grachtenfestival has to be...
John Jansen is squatting in front of his immense printer. Holding his breath, he very carefully places a piece of paper in just the right place. The inlay for the black metal band's new cassette Northward. Black typography on black board. Monk's work. He sighs with relief. "And so I have to do 88 of those. All by hand. Do you understand how many hours go into a tape like that?"
He is the greatest director in the Netherlands. But also the least honourable theatre-maker we know: Johan Simons. The man whose star has been rising since the 1980s is now in Munich. But he is not staying there. After putting the local company Kammerspiele even more firmly on the map internationally, he is looking for new challenges. Den Bosch earlier reported...
We are talking about the summer of 2015. Then Benedict Cumberbatch will play the title role in Hamlet, to be seen at the Barbican Centre in London. For the show, which plays for 12 weeks, 214% more tickets have already been sold in the first few hours after ticket sales opened yesterday than for Jay Z and Beyoncé's tour, which is on the same...
Reviled and adulated. In perhaps the best episode in years, it revealed why Zomergasten is such a good TV programme. Thanks to guest Reinbert de Leeuw and host Wilfried de Jong. 5 quotes we need to show why.
Flemish actors can speak. Flemish actors usually don't need microphones to make themselves understood over a storm, or from 100 metres away in the open air. Charlotte Caeckaert is one such actress who can do all that, and such technique is a joy to witness. She also writes lyrics, and that's where things go a little wrong....
Two actors who, together with their director, want to create a performance about loss. Or rather: our fear of losing things, or people. The makers are not quite there yet, it turns out at Theatre Festival Boulevard. From numerous conversations with thinkers and (experiential) experts, they have distilled characters while improvising, which they - separated by a thick...
Nerd theatre with electric dings and funny little mechanisms. I love it. Seen something on a construction scaffold in the last century with a starring role for taunting bench sanders and droning derricks. I was hoping for something like this with Studio Gebroed's 'Days', but was a little disappointed. The premise is fun, of course: we follow a creator who, in a few days like this, creates a very nice...
There were people who simply looked in the kitchen cupboards even though the guide expressly forbade it. That type of person, who probably also asks for ketchup at every meal, was one of the more interesting discoveries during the walk you could take in den Bosch, titled 'Peeping'. The performance is an example of 'experiential theatre': theatre without a clear storyline or message,...
Payments are made via iDeal, Paypal, Credit Card, Bancontact or Direct Debit. If you prefer to pay manually, based on an invoice in advance, we charge a 10€ administration fee
*Only for annual membership or after 12 monthly payments
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français
You must be logged in to post a comment.