Opera Forward Festival 2022 Set For March

The Opera Forward Festival surprises with everything opera can be. With work by established names and a new generation of makers, musical performances, video art and talks, OFF explores the art form that is opera. From the theme that is central to this sixth edition, 'New Beginnings', OFF invites the audience to discover that opera is also something for them.

The Opera Forward Festival is the ultimate platform and the engine for innovation in opera. Since its first edition in 2016, OFF has been looking for the power of opera today, in a world that is changing rapidly. OFF is the place where we give way to new ways of making opera, with new artistic and social impulses, with new narratives and voices. A music theatre festival that shows the state of the art of contemporary opera with established artists and joins forces with adventurous creators to explore what everything that opera can also be.

A richly varied contextual programming, in collaboration with organisations such as Brainwash Festival and The School of Life, shows, furthermore, through all kinds of viewing, reading and listening material, that opera resonates beyond the walls of the theatre and touches on relevant themes.

Within this edition of OFF there is also an important place reserved for students from various art schools, resulting in three different OFF Labs: Performing Arts, Visual Arts and Arts & Science.

All these festival components centre around four performances that are part of OFF:

I Have Missed You Forever - world premiere

With FAUST [Working Title], Manoj Kamps and Lisenka Heijboer Castañón introduced a method to Dutch National Opera that DNO will encourage exploration in the future. This production will follow the same method: a collective of performers, designers, writers and composers from different disciplines and backgrounds worked together intensively on this production. By sharing stories, teaching each other songs and choreographies and exchanging skills in workshops and through online channels, they laid the foundation for this production. The creative team presented their ideas to the performers, who in turn came up with a plethora of visions and creations. All of this will take shape during the intense final rehearsal period, leading up to the performances in ITA. There, the audience will surround the performers, and will in turn be surrounded by rituals of mourning and joy, in the company of dogs who are man's best friend, guide, protector and connector.
Concept and creation: Lisenka Heijboer Castañón, Manoj Kamps, Antonio Cuenca Ruiz, Sarah Sluimer, Pete Harden, Carmen Schabracq, Eddy van der Laan, Hendrik Walther. Coproduction with Asko|Schönberg.

Orphée | L'Amour | Eurydice - world premiere

What is the nature of love nowadays? Inspired by Christoph Willibald Gluck's opera Orphée et Eurydice, opera director Robin Coops and VR pioneer Avinash Changa went on a journey of exploring, resulting in three separate opera experiences that immerse visitors in different ways into the perspectives of Orphée, Eurydice and L'Amour. In this version of the myth, Orpheus and Eurydice are not separated by death, but by a fate that strikes many present-day relationships: the lovers have lost each other along the way. They don't communicate directly anymore, only via text messages with L'Amour, the personification of love, who in turn is at a loss how to properly fulfil his role as a mediator.
Stage direction: Robin Coops. VR direction: Avinash Changa. With Lucas van Lierop as Orphée, Kalin Morrow and Tijana Prendovic as Eurydice, Brechtje Kat and Tirza de Boer as L'Amour.

Denis & Katya - Dutch premiere

Two teenage runaways livestream their final hours from a squat, leaving behind a trail of devastating videos. The chamber opera Denis & Katya explores the public's reactions to the couple's tragic fate. An investigation in the form of an opera into how stories are formed and shared in our age of internet voyeurism, conspiracy theories, fake news and being online 24/7. Director Ted Huffman and composer Philip Venables based their most recent opera on a true story. On 14 November 2016, two Russian 15-year-olds started a livestream on the website Periscope depicting their running away from home, going into hiding, their confrontation with the police and ultimately, their death. As the day wore on and Denis and Katya continued to livestream, the number of online viewers continued to grow. Conspiracy theories abounded, fan sites appeared. Denis and Katya became an internet sensation that, like themselves, was short-lived.
Stage direction: Ted Huffman. Musical direction: Tim Anderson. With: Michael Wilmering and Inna Demenkova. Original production of Opera Philadelphia, Music Theatre Wales and Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier.

Eurydice - Die Liebenden, blind - world premiere

Inspired by the Greek myth and Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonette an Orpheus, composer Manfred Trojahn presents an contemporary, dramatic poem in which he takes us on an inevitable journey by train and ship, where Eurydice sees old acquaintances and meets Orpheus. Orpheus thinks he can be an addition to Eurydice's life, but once on the 'other side', Eurydice decides she no longer needs someone else for her life to be fulfilled. Eurydice - Die Liebenden, blind uses the power of music to allegorically describe the attraction of the muse-like figure of Eurydice to the singing artist Orpheus, to describe the love between Orpheus and Eurydice as the love between word and sound, between artistry and inspiration.
Stage direction: Pierre Audi. Musical direction: Erik Nielsen. With: Andrè Schuen as Orpheus, Julia Kleiter as Eurydice, Thomas Oliemans as Pluto, Katia Ledoux as Proserpina and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra.

Opera Forward Festival is made possible by Main Sponsor National Opera & Ballet HOUTHOFF, Production Partner Ammodo, Founding Partners Opera Forward Festival Fonds 21 and VandenEnde Foundation and Partner OFF Labs Prince Bernhard Cultuurfonds and Zabawas.

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