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Indien je een mens bent, laat dit veld leeg:.

The National Opera

Der Schatzgräber II: Van Hove exposes core and weaknesses

by Henri Drost
8 September 201230 March 2022
5 min read
For members only, MUSIC, OPERA

"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.

Tchaikovsky's last opera is all about Princess Iolanta. Everyone knows she is blind, but keeps...

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Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

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Der Schatzgräber I: blistering music, freezing dry staging

by Thea Derks
7 September 201230 March 2022
4 min read
For members only, MUSIC

The Netherlands Opera opens the season with a rarely performed opera by Franz Schreker, in which pagan and Christian themes intermingle. The gorgeous music is countered by the chilly direction, preventing identification with the characters.

At the end of the nearly three-hour Schatzgräber, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and chief conductor Marc Albrecht were clapping the loudest at the Muziektheater last night. At his instigation, De Nederlandse Opera pulled out...

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Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

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Miraculous play on age-old techniques mirrors Stravinky's music in 50,000 litres of water and 50 minutes

by Henri Drost
14 January 201230 March 2022
3 min read
For members only, MUSIC, OPERA

Thai and Vietnamese puppetry. Acrobats, Chinese shadow play and Japanese costumes. A Chinese conductor for a Dutch orchestra, a Canadian directing team and, as the main work, a scant 50-minute opera by a Russian composer, based on a fairy tale by a Danish writer who took his inspiration from China. Loosely.

That, and fifty thousand litres of water, are the ingredients for The Nightingale and Other Fables at Amsterdam's Muziektheater. A performance...

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Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

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Elektra: only five singers worldwide who can handle this part. Linda Watson sings scathingly Nietzschean.

by one of our members
24 October 201130 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Elektra - stage photo: Hans van den Bogaard The fourth revival of Elektra by De Nederlandse Opera is over halfway through. In the final performances, two fresh dramatic sopranos take over. Why is an opera revived, even as many as four times? At the sleep-inducing Don Giovanni in the previous season of De Nederlandse Opera - also a revival - was...