(Photo: Joost Milde) Amsterdam’s Opera Forward Festival played it safe with a staging of Philip Glass’s “Les Enfants Terrible,” not that it was any less enjoyable for the fact. Glass’s operas can, with their mix of strong, thought-provoking narratives and accessible, exciting and energetic music, almost guarantee to bring in the audiences. And this was certainly the case here. Written {…}
(Photo: Bart Grietens) Amsterdam’s Opera Forward Festival seeks to challenge our understanding of what constitutes an opera, to push at its accepted boundaries, and to discover new pathways in which the art form can develop, both in its form and its content as well as its mode of presentation. Over the past ten years, the festival has met with many {…}
The Dutch National Opera has announced its 2025-26 season. Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” and Mascagni’s “Cavalleria rusticana” will be conducted by Andrea Battistoni. Leoncavallo’s work will star Corinne Winters, Riccardo Massi, Roman Burdenko, and Hubert Zapiór while Mascagni’s will star Raehann Bryce-Davis, SeokJong Baek, Enkelejda Shkoza, Roman Burdenko, and Maria Warenberg. Performance Dates: Sept. 5 – 23, 2026 Shostakovich’s “Cherry Town” will {…}
(Credit: © Hugo Thomassen) The Dutch National Opera is set to perform the Dutch premiere of Mieczysław Weinberg’s opera “Die Passagierin.” The production will open on April 17 and run through May 2, starring Jenny Carlstedt, Sibylle Maria Dordel, Nikolai Schukoff, Sylvia D’Eramo, Gyula Orendt, Madison Horman, Iida Antola, Eva Kroon, Margarita Nekrasova, Daria Brusova, Joe Chalmers, Jasurbek Khaydarov, Lucas {…}
The Dutch National Opera has announced its Opera Forward Festival marking its tenth anniversary. The festival will take place between March 6 and 15, 2026. Productions The company will world premiere “Theory of Flames” by Michel van der Aa. The production will star sopranos Mary Bevan and Aphrodite Patoulidou alternating in the role of Neola, mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston as her {…}
(Credit: © Hugo Thomassen) The Dutch National Opera is set to present Händel’s “Semele” for the very first time. The company will present a new production by Claus Guth, a production of the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera. Emmanuelle Haïm will conduct her ensemble Le Concert d’Astrée and will star Elsa Benoit in the title role, {…}
(Photo: Ruth Walz) Like other fairytales, Richard Strauss’ opera, “Die Frau ohne Shatten,” with its cast of human and supernatural beings, otherworldly locations and a magical plot, makes use of symbols and metaphor to carry deeper messages and thus opens itself up to a wide range of interpretations. Katie Mitchell, the director for Dutch National Opera’s recent production, certainly took {…}
On May 17, Kirill Serebrennikov was awarded Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur. The director, who is currently in rehearsals for a new production of “Boris Godunov” for Dutch National Opera, was honored at the Cannes Film Festival by Minister of Culture Rachida Dati. Serebrennikov is at Cannes as his upcoming film “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele” will premiere at the {…}
The Dutch National Opera is set to present “Boris Godunov” in a new production by Kirill Serebrennikov. In his new staging, Serebrennikov is tackling a work that means a great deal to him. Drawing on the photography of Markov, Serebrennikov shows a cross-section of a block of flats typical of the ones built en masse during the Soviet period. There is {…}
(Photo credit: Koen Broos) Over the past twenty years or so, there have been plenty of programs on television, radio and the internet devoted to oral history, in which everyday people recall major and minor events along with the social and economic conditions from their own past to create an anecdotal montage that can be accessed by current and future {…}
The Dutch National Opera is set to perform Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” on tour in concert performances. The company will partner with Opera Zuid and Nederlandse Reisopera and will be touring the Netherlands with a Purcell programme centred around the short opera “Dido and Aeneas.” This music from more than 300 years ago will be interpreted by members of the {…}