Anything for which people enter a stage.
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.
It is the first mass scene in Wagner's Ring: Siegfried leads Brünnhilde to the Gibichungenburg and Hagen summons all his men. From the side stage there is literally a deafening blare of horns, but conductor Ed Spanjaard allows the play to continue. And rightly so: the orchestra has a spark. The whole stage is filled in an instant and the choir swells in strength, louder and louder, ever louder, until the ecstatic apotheosis:
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 opens the season with a rarely performed opera by Franz Schreker, which mixes pagan and Christian themes. The brilliant music is countered by the chilly direction, preventing identification with the characters.
I did it just like that. Proclaimed a show as the most important theatre innovation for 20 years. That's daring. Even though I made the term a bit more vague in a subsequent tweet, because, yes, there has been quite a lot of innovation in recent years, left and right in theatres. So let's stick to 'the last few years'. And then...
In the production Bill & Mr B, the Dutch National Ballet dives thematically into history with reprises of works by George Balanchine and William Forsythe. Balanchine's Symphony in Three Movements (1972) is considered the breeding ground for Forsythe, who then went 'the extra mile' with Steptext (1985) and The Second Detail (1991). From protocol to photocall: dance as a photo session. Movement - click,...
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.
The 1923 Afro-Cubist dance classic can be seen at Music Theatre today and tomorrow, commented on by Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula. "Europeans have no idea that they are denying the shared history of Africa and Europe. Belgium is part of everyday life in Congo, but Belgians hardly know anything about Congo, or it is the clichés about poverty
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.
Eleven poles are atmospherically lit like a nightclub. Dancers enter and make their way to their work stations. They will walk around their poles in a two-hour shift. They are not the only ones: audience members also start walking, towards the exit. Yet the dizzying repetitions of the hard-working ladies are effective. However, the transcendental minimalism will turn into a...
With enfant, choreographer Boris Charmatz broaches a difficult topic: how do we as adults deal with ourselves, and how do we deal with children? Charmatz draws on the French philosopher Lyotard, who pondered the "inhumanity" of adults and saw real people in children. The current image about physical contact with children is distorted and it is...
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.
Kat Válastur claimed that it is almost impossible to describe the dynamics of her performance with words. She is right. It is rare skill how with only two dancers in one place, so much can be depicted and the audience is sucked into a maelstrom. In the small hall of Theatre Kikker, mechanical thuds sound and two giants appear in the middle of the stage. They turn out to be dancers:...
Elk festival smeekt om vrijwilligers en in de begindagen van Springdance waren er zelfs helemaal geen betaalde krachten. Dat zegt ook iets. Nu Springdance na dertig jaar gaat fuseren met Festival aan de Werf is het thema van deze laatste editie ‘scupltured bodies & body sculptures’. Bij SYLPHIDES is dit treffend van toepassing. “Hoe mensen bewegen interesseert mij niet, ik wil…
Europe in Motion is een reizend talentontwikkelingsprogramma en fungeert als ‘battleground’ en plek van ontmoeting voor jonge choreografen. Wat urgent is in dans, wordt een week lang besproken om dansmakers te stimuleren in hun artistieke ontwikkeling. Deze tweede editie, met partners Dance4 (Nottingham), iDans (Istanbul) en Imagetanz (Wenen), eindigt in Utrecht. Op Springdance was eerder dans uit high tech laboratoria in Israël (Batsheva Dance…
Met twee voorstellingen, ”The Toxic Exotic Disappearance Act” en ”House” laat Batsheva Dance Company indrukwekkende, sublieme dansbeheersing zien en frisse dynamiek. Maar ook onrust, zoeken en verwarring. Het tijdperk van happy, harmonieuze dans is voorbij. Tijdens een lezing over dans, voorafgaand aan de voorstelling, wordt benadrukt dat hedendaagse dans zich niet compulsief hoeft af te zetten tegen andere dansstromingen. Deze artistieke…
Our team agrees: Springdance really took off on Saturday. With Ibrahim Quraishi's installation 'Wildlife Take Away Station' for sure. Reviewer Daniel Bertina made his own recordings, which will appear in his review. And it was even more tasty for him at '(M)imosa. Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (M)....
“I love it when movement moves people”, zegt de Britse choreograaf Russel Maliphant in dit interview na afloop van de voorstelling The Rodin Project. In de Hekmanfoyer van de Utrechtse Stadsschouwburg voelde onze collega van Danspubliek.nl de maker ven the Rodin Project aan de tand over zijn drijfveren. Interessant is wat Maliphant te zeggen heeft over het eerste deel van…
Dit jaar wordt Springdance voor het laatst gehouden. Na bijna 30 jaar werd het tijd voor iets nieuws, al was het alleen maar omdat de wind in Den Haag opeens van rechts komt en dat is bad for business. Als je tenminste vernieuwende kunst wilt laten zien. Daarom fuseert Springdance in de loop van dit jaar met het andere Utrechtse…
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