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4 faces of Abel Gance, creator of Napoleon

The Holland Festival presents Abel Gance's restored film epic on Sunday Napoleon, with live orchestra. A rare event, for the first time in this form on mainland Europe. In 1927, Gance had performed with Napoleon delivered a groundbreaking and monumental piece of work that made unusual demands on the projection (three canvases) and went out into the world in a variety of severely shortened versions after the first performances.

Napoleon at Ziggo Dome promises to be spectacular, but who was That ambitious loner Abel Gance?

Pierre Audi's latest Holland Festival opens with sublime ensemble playing of Rosas and Ictus: Vortex Temporum

It seems like a statement, opening the latest Holland Festival under Pierre Audi's direction with 'Vortex Temporum'. The collaboration between the two top Belgian ensembles Rosas and Ictus does everything that is scarce in the present day.

Win tickets to opera at Paradiso! Whether you like opera or not: five reasons to go to The News today

Win tickets for The NEWS at Paradiso

Big new, small news. News is everywhere, there is no escape. On the street, in one's own living room. What starts at the breakfast table can become world news. So: what is your news today? Let us know, share this page and take a picture, post it on facebook and twitter. Add #thenewsnl and win two tickets to the reality opera that will permanently change your view of the news.

Jubilant reviews. With the 'reality opera' The News, the Nederlandse Reisopera has a hit on its hands. However, the familiar theatre setting is being abandoned for pop temple Paradiso. Whether you like opera or not: five reasons to go.

Requiem for the Red Box

After seven concert seasons, the broadcasting series takes 'The Friday of Vredenburg' farewell to emergency venue Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn, better known as 'The Red Box'. From September, the concerts will again take place in the restored Great Hall of the otherwise brand-new TivoliVredenburg. The concert on 6 June will feature the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Groot Omroepkoor, conducted by Antony Hermus. They will play music by Beethoven, Richard Strauss and a brand new piece by Wim Laman, Requiem Songs.

Volksopera is a celebration of Ondiep, but what will be left when the cameras are gone?

Barely five months between first audition and first performance. That was all the time the makers and local residents had for the Volksopera Ondiep, which experienced the first of two performances on Friday 23 May. It was a warm May evening, touching at times, sometimes dreadful, but fun anyway: classics by Verdi (most of them), Bizet, Puccini and Offenbach, set to Dutch text and sung by complete amateurs. Accompanied, for once, by the Groot Omroepkoor.

From packaging for fish to opera: JacobTV's The News

The news: today it is hot, tomorrow the fish will be wrapped in it. In his video opera The News gives Jacob ter Veldhuis/JacobTV it a second life by putting it in a new context. 'These days, news is infotainment, dipped in sentiment.' Next Friday, the Dutch Travel Opera the premiere at the Wilminkteather in Enschede.

Legendary director Peter Brook (89): Theatre is the field given to me

The Valley of Astonishment. Titles don't come much prettier than that of 'The Valley of Astonishment'. Theatre legend Peter Brook's tentative last play is coming to Amsterdam. The Holland Festival gave me and two journalists from Parool and NRC, respectively, the opportunity to talk to the already legendary director when he was alive. Pretty special, because the man who enchanted an entire generation of theatre-makers and audiences with performances such as the nine-hour Mahabharata in Avignon, is considered a deity among theatre connoisseurs and enthusiasts.

Tom Waits exists thanks to Partch. 7 reasons to go see Delusion of the Fury. And listen.

'Harry Partch knew exactly what he was doing. He chose very specific bourbon bottles to fill in those 43 steps in the octave. So he made music that is very accessible, but also very elusive. And that's what good art should do.'

6 Reasons why Holland Festival 2014 will be the best ever. And War Horse.

 "The only one who still dares to go for the elite". On his way to the car park under the Passengers Terminal Amsterdam, the retired newspaper reviewer who once had a page on music sighed at the feeling of his part of society. It was after the press conference where the programme of Holland Festival 2014 was presented. He was talking, as we sank deeper and deeper, about Pierre Audi, the artistic director of that Holland Festival, who this year announced his last - and most glorious - programme ever.

Onderzoek toont aan: muzieksmaak is een kwestie van afspraak en gewenning

Dat wij een toonladder hebben zoals we die hebben, en dat we bepaalde akkoorden als mooi ervaren, komt omdat we dat hebben geleerd. En wat we hebben geleerd is het gevolg van afspraken. Er bestaat in de muziek, net als in de beeldende kunst of in het theater, geen absoluut ideaal waarnaar de kunstenaars moeten streven. Geen absolute schoonheid, geen goddelijke vonk, geen hemel waarnaar we allemaal terugverlangen, slechts een setje afspraken.

Video: 3 times swearing and ranting for the good cause and Heleen Mees

Omdat Writers Unlimited samenwerkt met een van de laatste literaire tijdschriften van Nederland, en omdat dat tijdschrijft ‘Tirade’ heet, was er tijdens het laatste festival in Den Haag een plek ingeruimd voor tirades. En wat dat dan zijn? Het online woordenboek zegt: 

Antjie Krog and Andries Samuel drive a tractor over your heart #WU14

"Of course she can write!" seems the mother of the award-winning South African poet Antjie Krog ever having exclaimed. "Because I can do it too, right? There's nothing special about that."

Blood creeps, even for Krog. After a ten-year career as a successful architect - and secretly grinding on words - her own son debuted Andries Samuel with the crushing, heartbreaking collection of poetry Wanpraktyk (2011). 

Writers Unlimited brought mother and son together on stage. Late at night. For the first time ever. And Wende sang to them. And god almighty how beautiful that was. By the way, you have to take it from us, because on pain of caning, pitch & feathers and fines from here to Siberia, it turned out that it was forbidden to film Wende singing (but we did, and the video was online for a while, but has now been removed from the internet).

Arie Boomsma flings books of poetry at Writers Unlimited

De latenight afsluitingen van de Winternachten op Writers Unlimited zijn altijd vrolijk. Dat komt omdat de dichters al wat losser zijn en het publiek wat meer gedronken heeft. En dit keer kwam het ook door megapubliekstrekker (bij andere gelegenheden) Arie Boomsma. Het vrolijke kijkcijferkanon smeet uit balorigheid met dichtbundels van de gasten van zijn programmaonderdeel.

‘De uitgerangeerde Marokkaan en de Vlaming mogen het weer uitvechten’ #WU14

In de rijke traditie van schrijvers die elkaars bloed wel kunnen drinken en de ander schuimbekkend met de pen te lijf gaan, orkestreerde Writers Unlimited een ‘polemiek’. Abdelkader Benali verwoordde in dit debat de stem van het volk, en Saskia De Coster die van de elite. Beiden hakten op elkaar in met hulp van moderator Elsbeth Etty. Resultaat: veel onsamenhangend getreiter.

2 nights of sex, booze and relaxed writers: a mini guide

Writers Unlimited is the most fun literary festival in the world. We can know, because we have been there twice now. Whether the comparison with all those 20 million other literature festivals in the world is entirely pure, we don't know. We do know that a lot of the writers who attend Writers Unlimited agree with us. At least during those few days and especially nights in January.

A few reasons.

Artists' acquittal: March of Civilisation was civilised after all

Police cracked down on the March of Civilisation on 27 June 2011 in The Hague. The demonstration against art cuts, which was controversial because of its rather elitist naming, ended with a few charges by the ME on artists. Their friendly sit-in thereby degenerated into something that opponents of all those elitist subsidy slimmers (according to Martin Bosma of the PVV) were only too happy to see: violence.

Piano man Kiev inspired by art at Hoog Catharijne

De Pianoman, de jongen die dit weekend viral ging omdat hij piano speelde tegenover een peloton ME in Kiev, kwam in Hoog Catharijne op zijn idee. NRC Handelsblad meldt dat. De 22 jarige Markian Matsech liep deze zomer als zovelen door het Utrechtse winkelhart, net toen daar de kunstmanifestatie Call of the Mall plaatsvond.

Co-operation is co-operation: Culture Press after Lost-painters now joins forces with Bijlage.tv

We were actually still missing a good video event, and the people behind Annex.tv, the online TV channel for XS4all subscribers was still missing a good online presence in the cultural sector. And so that's where we could help each other. We thought. So we try out what we can do together.

Subtle but dull Fokine fine lead to Van Manen's 'Corps' and promising premiere of EGPC at the Dutch National Ballet

The bodies of Fokine, Van Manen and EGPC in the Dutch National Ballet's new programme 'Corps' are vastly different, though they all dance a form of ballet. It is the differences in stakes (decorative or expressive, stylised control or individual surrender, full of symbolism or stripped of it) and the key role for the ensemble that make the programme extremely interesting. Besides the fact that EGPC seems to be on its way to an artistic breakthrough.

Daan Roosegaarde for president? Alderman? Councillor?

Jet Bussemaker believes in Daan Roosegaarde. She confessed this on Sunday 1 September during the traditional Paradiso debate. She admired his courage to imagine the unthinkable and his drive to come up not with opinions but with proposals. Her message to the arts sector, again almost fully present in Paradiso, was clear: stop complaining, start doing something.

I Like To Watch Too is a must for keeping the performing arts in the Netherlands young and fresh

A man and a woman dance passionately in the hall of Paradiso. Such an experimental dance performance is unusual for the Amsterdam pop palace. Yet the festival I Like To Watch Too right here. Many people feel a barrier towards this kind of performance, but here there is just the right 'in and out' atmosphere to make avant-garde art something you can just look at and that always triggers something in you.

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