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Dutch Symphony Orchestra loses lawsuit and name

We already wrote about  the name change of the Orchestra of the East into the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra (NedSym). The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra (NedPho) was not amused and felt that the Enschede-based orchestra was infringing its trademark and trademark rights and demanded that the orchestra choose a different name. Summary proceedings followed and in April 2012 the court ruled that the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra could only not use the abbreviation NedSO, but did not have to change its name.

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Franui provides the most fun Mahler evening in years at @HollandFestival

Holland Festival

What to expect from a 'musicabanda' from East Tyrol? Gemütliche folk music? Yodelling? Dance music for weddings and parties? An evening in a beer pub? Either way: definitely not Mahler. But why not, thought the Franui from the village of Innervillgraten. Result: an enervating performance around orchestral songs. We have never heard Mahler like this before.

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Desdemona in black and white

Holland Festival Holland Festival

Is the kingdom of the dead in the opera Sunken Garden by Michel van der Aa a 3D garden full of brilliant colour, director Peter Sellars chooses in Desdemona by Toni Morrison and Rokia Traoré for sober black and white. On the stage of a sold-out Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ are glass bottles and jars, sometimes lit from below, sometimes from above, with hanging light bulbs like flickering candles. On the left are a number of ngonis (Malian lute) and two koras (Malian harp lute), played by black musicians.

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John Adams' other Gospel of Mary @HollandFestival: masterpiece just too long

Holland Festival Holland Festival

Mary is arrested at a demonstration and thrown into a cell next to a heroin addict, while her sister Martha has just started a shelter for the homeless. And Lazarus, yes, Jesus brings him back to life here too, with downright breathtaking sounds. And we are not even halfway through.

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Meistersinger @HollandFestival convinces musically only

Holland Festival Holland Festival

Cowardly knight defeats untalented rule fetishist with help from wise cobbler and wins singing contest and the hand of coquettish goldsmith's daughter. Or: boy meets girl on the streets of Nuremberg and decides to enter the local version of Nuremberg's got talent. The judges send him away, but he gets the audience vote. Wagner wouldn't be Wagner, however, if he didn't take about five hours for this story.

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Two voices on Sunken Garden @HollandFestival part 2. Thea Derks: 'Guilt & penance before, after, with and in death'

Holland Festival Holland Festival

Amsterdam, 5-6-2013 - It is difficult to go uninhibited to a production that has already caused so much controversy as Sunken Garden by Michel van der Aa. This "first 3D opera" was slammed as "soporific" after its premiere at London's Barbican Theatre last April, but also hailed as "the future of opera".

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Two voices on Sunken Garden @HollandFestival, part 1. Henri Drost: "much more than 3D film opera"

Holland Festival Holland Festival

Forget all the fuss about the first-ever 3D film opera, forget all the fuss in British newspapers. Michel van der Aa himself sighed in interview that, on reflection, he would have loved to have made the second 3D film opera. And perhaps he had

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Will broadcast library collection be saved?

Hilversum, 1-5-2013 - On Labour Day, the VARA programme spent The Guide on Radio 1 focused on the impending abolition of the library of the broadcaster, resulting in some 10 highly specialised and dedicated staff losing their jobs. Although this immense and unique archive, which houses some five kilometres of scores, parts and books, can be kept afloat for half a million euros, it will still be disbanded from 1 August.

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Moritz Eggert: 'I want to give Wagner back his innocence'

With Tragedy of a Friendship commemorates Flanders Opera the bicentenary of Richard Wagner's birth. It is a production by controversial artist Jan Fabre, author Stefan Hertmans and composer Moritz Eggert. When I approach the German tone poet for a conversation about this opera, he reacts with shock: there is ab-so-lutely no question of an opera! Could I please clear up this misunderstanding once and for all?

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Willem Jeths: 'My First Symphony is about life and death'

At his 53e can Willem Jeths boasts an impressive career. His orchestral and chamber music works are performed worldwide and have been recorded on many CDs. In 2008, the newly built Muziekkwartier in Enschede opened with his opera Hotel de Pékin, and three years later the recording of his ode to gay marriage reached Monument to a Universal Marriage even US President Obama. At the request of the Saturday Matinee Jeths wrote his First Symphony for the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the mezzo-soprano Karin Strobos, which will premiere it at the Concertgebouw on 13 April.

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Prokofiev's satirical fairy tale is a visual feast

What makes an opera a success? The eccentrics, airheads, comedians, lyricists and tragedians think they know, proclaiming their point of view at the craziest moments and not even bothering to intervene in the action. Welcome to the wonderful world of Prokofiev's L'amour des trois oranges, back on stage this month at the Amsterdam musical theatre.

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Only in final scene does Guillaume Tell bathe in golden sunlight

After more than four hours, it happens: emotion. Free Switzerland is bathed in golden sunlight and the choir swells over the most beautiful orchestral sounds Rossini composed. Unworldly sounds, which have little to do with the best-known sounds from Guillaume Tell - The canter from the overture.

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Peter van Onna: 'Treaty of Utrecht is also topical now'

Three hundred years ago, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed, bringing an end to both the War of Spanish Succession, and the War of Queen Anne. Remarkably, this peace treaty was not negotiated on the battlefield, but at the negotiating table. It took a year and a half for the many parties to come to an agreement, and the treaty counts as the beginning of... 

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Die Zauberflöte II - Overwhelming, but then?

Zauberflöte

Two years ago he was acclaimed for his staging of A Dog's Heart by Alexander Raskatov, now he is lavishly believed for his production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. It premiered last week at The Netherlands Opera and last night too, the sold-out audience responded enthusiastically. Yet the high expectations were not quite met.

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