Oud of nieuw, klassiek of modern, minimaal of wereld. Pop. Tonaal en atonaal.
Amsterdam, 10-10-2012 - Already last summer, the Dutch Chamber Choir (NKK) through our country, working with amateur choirs at surprise station concerts to draw the general public's attention to its seventy-fifth anniversary. In the coming weeks, this anniversary will be celebrated with a series of concerts in seven different cities, under the recruiting title 'A tradition of renewal'.
Amsterdam, 8 October 2012 During the well-attended Classical Music Day at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ the prize winners of the competition for women composers were announced this afternoon. The day was organised for the 11th time by Music centre Netherlands (MCN), which will cease to exist on 1 January. Thanks to an anonymous bequest, explicitly intended for women composers, three prizes could be awarded.
The closing applause after the premiere of Götterdämmerung stormy, is an understatement. It seemed as if the completely sold-out auditorium wanted to surpass the primal forces extracted from the Gelders Orkest by Ed Spanjaard. History was made here: on stage, by the soloists and choir, in the orchestra pit and behind the scenes, for six hours and 20 minutes.
Het is de eerste massascène in Wagners Ring: Siegfried voert Brünnhilde naar de Gibichungenburcht en Hagen roept al zijn mannen bijeen. Vanaf het zijtoneel klinkt letterlijk oorverdovend hoorngeschal, maar dirigent Ed Spanjaard laat doorspelen. En terecht: in het orkest slaat een vonk over. Het hele toneel is in een oogwenk gevuld en het koor zwelt in kracht aan, luider en luider, alsmaar luider, tot de extatische apotheose:
No fewer than eight collections of arias, cantatas, duets and sacred works were published by Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677). She enjoyed great prestige in the Accademia degli unisoni founded by her father, and lived off her compositions.
"That fairytale world has never been my world," director Ivo van Hove declared before the premiere of Schreker's fairytale opera Der Schatzgräber. Remarkable, as Van Hove and his regular scenographer Jan Versweyveld were previously responsible at De Nederlandse Opera for Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and Janáček's The Makropulos case - also fairy tales rather than grand dramatic works.
The Netherlands Opera opent het seizoen met een zelden uitgevoerde opera van Franz Schreker, waarin heidense en christelijke thema’s door elkaar lopen. De schitterende muziek wordt weersproken door de kille regie, waardoor identificatie met de personages uitblijft.
It begins beautifully. Prominently displayed on stage is Breitner's painting The Red Kimono. And not a copy, but the real thing, which is further underlined by the Stedelijk Museum's large number of crates, on which the musicians of the Hexagon Ensemble are also placed. Actor and dancer Michael Schumacher casually walks up to it and looks at the painting for about a minute - the average time a museum visitor looks at a painting.
That Pierre Audi does not shy away from religious symbolism is well known, but the true miracle in The Netherlands Opera's Parsifal is in the pit. There, in the hands of master conductor Iván Fischer, the Concertgebouw Orchestra sets a new Wagner standard. Despite a gigantic orchestral strength, almost chamber music-like lightness, extraordinarily transparent and, thanks to careful tempo choices, with wonderful dramatic tension. Five hours long.
Or: the familiar becomes utterly alien here. Or: embracing meaninglessness as the first principle. One hundred years after his birth, John Cage takes centre stage in HF weekend.
Ever since Reinbert de Leeuw played it in the fastest talk show on Dutch television, John Cage's 4'33" has been a well-known composition in our country. For exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds, the musician does not play a single note and the audience hears nothing but the ambient sounds.
In his Requiem for tenor, narrator and ensemble, Micha Hamel makes the most of the space of Amsterdam's De Duif church. Musicians play on the altar, from the balconies, mingle among the audience and push out a piano. - But what does Hamel really want to say? In front of a sold-out house, Micha Hamel's Requiem premiered last night. He ...
Een klassieke fout: Andries Knevel omschrijft Richard Wagner als de hofcomponist van Hitler. En wordt door niemand tegengesproken.
Om vijf ton extra binnen te kunnen halen, trekken het Nederlands Symfonie Orkest en het Gelders Orkest één lijn. En met succes: de provinciale overheden van Overijssel en Gelderland vangen de subsidiekorting van het rijk op. Nu blijkt echter dat de plannen waarmee die redding is binnengeharkt, dubieus zijn. De politiek heeft daar nauwelijks naar gekeken. Vragen over het businessplan kwamen in Overijssel vooral van de PVV, maar in Gelderland stemde die zelfde partij na een – opmerkelijk vernietigende – contra-expertise juist enthousiast in met de miljoeneninjectie.
Bijna dertien miljoen vroeg Het Gelders Orkest (HGO) aan de provincie Gelderland. Het kreeg drie-en-een-half. Precies genoeg om de korting op de rijkssubsidie de komende twee jaar op te vangen en toe te werken naar een nieuwe organisatiestructuur en een nieuw verdienmodel, zoals omschreven in een zeer ambitieus businessplan, dat…… wacht even. Hier hebben we toch al over geschreven?
We schreven al uitvoerig over de naamsverandering van het Orkest van het Oosten in het Nederlands Symfonie Orkest (NSO). Ook de merkwaardige operasubsidieaanvraag gebaseerd op een businessplan dat enorme risico’s in zich draagt had onze volle aandacht. Vaste partner de Nationale Reisopera was not amused.
Festival Grenswerk kreeg op dinsdag 21 februari te horen dat het na drie succesvolle jaren moet stoppen, omdat het niet spoort met de ambities van Stichting Enschede Promotie. Het in 2009 opgezette festival kreeg na een vernietigend rapport van deze opgekalefaterde VVV door de wethouder een dik eisenpakket opgelegd waaraan het niet kon voldoen.
This week, the National Travel Opera begins rehearsals of Mozart's Le nozze di figaro. In the bin, the brand-new Netherlands Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jan Willem de Vriend. Business as usual, as the two companies have been working closely together for years and are united in the National Music Quarter Enschede. Only: orchestra and opera company have not been talking to each other since last week.
Thais en Vietnamees poppenspel. Acrobaten, Chinees schimmenspel en Japanse kostuums. Een Chinese dirigente voor een Nederlands orkest, een Canadees regieteam en als hoofdwerk een krap vijftig minuten durende opera van een Russische componist, gebaseerd op een sprookje van een Deense schrijver die zijn inspiratie uit China haalde. Losjes.
Letters from Culture Secretary Zijlstra are dangerous, especially when they are about figures and schemes. And we haven't seen the latest one for now. So right now, it is about 'friction costs' for the cultural sector. These are the costs that subsidised institutions have to incur when their existence ends due to the subsidy freeze. Think redundancy payments, damages, flower arrangements for funerals of suicides and selling real estate at a loss.
The smallest opera company in the Netherlands beats the biggest. Not in visitor numbers, not in subsidy received, but in bringing in sponsorship money. On closer inspection, however, it becomes painfully clear once again that there is no giving culture in the Netherlands and sponsorship is limited to a pittance. A rattling giving law will not change that.
The Netherlands has a new orchestra: the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra. At least, new in name. The Orchestra of the East does not seem to be waiting for possible forced mergers, and is already claiming its position as the national orchestra outside the Randstad by means of this striking name change that was made public today before the start of a concert with the Jussen brothers.
Has state secretary Halbe Zijlstra the Lower House lied or misled in June when he stated that rushing through the culture cuts was necessary to absorb friction costs? Or does it just turn out to be improper governance?
The dragon remains tricky. Truly terrifying you never get him, of course, but what looked like a cross between a storage tank and an underground tube was laughable even before kitchy claws emerged from the wall. No wonder young Siegfried had the forchten does not learn and stands there smiling.
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