Berend Eijkhout

Eline Welle

Jan-Willem Schaafsma

Family opera based on the book by Toon Tellegen (6+)

“A wonderful production for young and old alike”, wrote the Dutch newspaper NRC after the premiere of A Song for the Moon. Theaterkrant magazine concluded that the production “deserves to become a regular part of the repertoire”. We took those words to heart: following the overwhelming success of this heart-warming family opera, we will be bringing it back to Studio Boekman for the Christmas holidays.

Photo: Michiel Spijkers


The lonely Mole decides to write a song to cheer up the Moon. The Grasshopper rehearses with his orchestra until they have mastered the song and then one night they give an amazing concert. But why does the Moon look so sad afterwards...?

‘My first opera’

A Song for the Moon is based on Toon Tellegen’s book of the same name, a fable about the power of music. Composer Mathilde Wantenaar has turned the story into a lovely ‘My first opera’ for a young audience and their parents. It is an accessible yet multi-layered production that does just what the story says: it moves people through its music.

Making contact

When Mathilde Wantenaar read Toon Tellegen’s book A Song for the Moon, she was captivated. “The story appealed to my musical imagination. It deals with important topics such as loneliness, identity, disappointment and friendship. It is also about the power of music and the ability to make contact with one another.” Wantenaar got to know stage director Béatrice Lachaussée and set designer Nele Ellegiers during a workshop organised by ENOA, a European talent development network that DNO is involved in. During their conversations, the idea for this children’s opera was born.

Performance information

Sung in Dutch

Libretto  Mathilde Wantenaar and Willem Bruls
Based on the book by Toon Tellegen

Stage direction  Béatrice Lachaussée
Set and costume design  Nele Ellegiers
Video design  Coen Bouman
Lighting design  Cor van den Brink
Dramaturgy  Willem Bruls
Musical coach  Leonard Evers

Mole  Vera Fiselier
Fieldmouse / Moon / Forest (ensemble)  Ginette Puylaert
Dormouse / Cricket / Forest (ensemble)  Eline Welle
Frog / Forest (ensemble)  Jan-Willem Schaafsma
Grasshopper / Earthworm / Forest (ensemble)  Berend Eijkhout
Shrew  Mirna Ackers

Nationaal Jeugdorkest (National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands)

Commission and co-production of Dutch National Opera, La Monnaie / De Munt (Brussel), Festival d’Aixen- Provence, Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía (Madrid), Opera Zuid (Maastricht)

The original book A Song for the Moon by Toon Tellegen was published by Em. Querido’s Uitgeverij, Amsterdam, 2012

Performances for schools
We offer exclusive school matinees for primary school students. Please visit this page: https://www.operaballet.nl/en/scholen-families/po/schoolmatinees for more information.

🎨 Cultural

Nationale Opera & Ballet (Stopera)

A Song for the Moon

Kyle Ketelsen

Leigh Melrose

Annette Dasch

John Osborn

The first two humans on Earth fell in love. The third human murdered the fourth. Die ersten Menschen tells the story of the first family in the Biblical history of humanity, Adahm, Chawa and their two sons Kajin and Chabel. After performances in the midst of the COVID pandemic, which were highly praised by public and press alike, this ‘rediscovered’ work by Rudi Stephan is now returning to Dutch National Opera in all its glory.

“Let’s hope nothing happens to my brain, as there are still so many great things in it”, said Rudi Stephan to his mother as he left for the front during the First World War. Two weeks later he was killed. He did not live to see the world premiere of his first opera. In this work, heavily influenced by the psychoanalysis that was popular in the beginning of the twentieth century, erotic and incestuous urges take the place of divine love.

Director Calixto Bieito situates the primaeval conflict in a modern-day setting reminiscent of the family dinner in Luis Buñuel’s film The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. As the evening progresses, the underlying tensions can no longer be suppressed and the white tablecloths become increasingly besmirched. The intense, physical acting that Bieito gets out of his outstanding quartet of performers does true justice to this opera driven by primitive urges. This season’s production reunites the four singers from the previous performance run: soprano Annette Dasch, bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, baritone Leigh Melrose and tenor John Osborn. The conductor Kwamé Ryan will be tackling Rudi Stephan’s lavish modernistic score for the first time, together with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra – with all the musicians on the stage.

Die ersten Menschen

Jacquelyn Wagner

Anna El-Khashem

Linard Vrielink

Daniel Behle

Cecilia Molinari

Angel Romero

To save himself during a catastrophic storm, the King of Crete, Idomeneo, promises the god Neptune that he will kill the first man he meets. Unfortunately that man turns out to be his son Idamante. The king is torn between paternal love and his promise to the gods. This fateful dilemma is at the heart of Mozart’s masterpiece, with a starring role for the chorus.

Choreographer and director Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is a phenomenon in the international dance and opera scene, and enjoys fame well beyond. He has choreographed for major pop stars such as Beyoncé and Madonna. For Idomeneo, he is working with dancers from his own company Eastman. The sets are designed by the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, acclaimed for her impressive thread installations. The constantly evolving structures composed of red ropes that she uses in Idomeneo have deep symbolic meaning. They represent the twists and turns of fate, and determine the space in which the dancers and characters have to manoeuvre.

Laurence Cummings, an expert in historically informed performance practices, makes his debut at Dutch National Opera. He will be conducting the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and the Chorus of Dutch National Opera, guiding them through this fascinating score in which Mozart turns baroque conventions into a modern musical language capable of expressing the deepest of human emotions. The title role will be sung by the much-lauded tenor Daniel Behle, who previously enjoyed great success as the King’s Son in Königskinder and as Lohengrin. The scintillating cast of soloists also includes Cecilia Molinari, Anna El-Khashem and Jacquelyn Wagner, all Mozart singers pur sang.

Idomeneo, re di Creta

Ted Huffman

Philip Venables

Claron McFadden

Helena Rasker

Bassem Akiki

Nina van Essen

Miles Mykkanen

Frederick Ballentine

Alex Rosen

Germán Olvera

Multi-voiced portrait of a generation

We Are The Lucky Ones tells the story of a generation. It is based on interviews with more than seventy people in Western Europe who were born between 1940 and 1949. It is the story of people who started out with little, who experienced ever-improving living standards and are now leaving behind a world where such growth is no longer sustainable. Their memories form a collective time capsule of the past eighty years, told as one continuous life story in music theatre form. Following individual experiences and societal changes over the decades, the opera raises crucial questions about the relationship between the private and the political, the impact of our choices and what truly matters in the end.

Successful duo

We Are The Lucky Ones is composer Philip Venables and director Ted Huffman’s fourth music theatre collaboration, their first orchestral opera and their first collaboration with playwright Segal. The duo’s chamber opera Denis & Katya, a reconstruction of the tragic fate of two real-life Russian teenagers compiled from various perspectives, was a hit at the 2022 Opera Forward Festival. Their latest collaboration, The Faggots and their Friends between Revolutions, an adaptation of Larry Mitchell’s queer fairy tale, received rave reviews upon its premiere at the Festival d’Aix-en Provence and is included in the programming of the 2024 Holland Festival.

Bassem Akiki

The conductor for this work is Bassem Akiki, who previously demonstrated his significant talents as an interpreter of new music with the world premiere of Alexander Raskatov’s Animal Farm. With the adventurous Residentie Orkest and a cast of singers of the highest calibre, We Are The Lucky Ones has all the ingredients of a world premiere to eagerly look forward to.

Performance information

Sung in English

Composition: Philip Venables
Libretto: Nina Segal and Ted Huffman
Musical direction: Bassem Akiki
Stage direction and set design: Ted Huffman
Costume design: Ted Huffman, Sonoko Kamimura
Lighting design: Bertrand Couderc
Movement: Pim Veulings
Dramaturgy: Nina Segal, Laura Roling
One: Claron McFadden
Two: Jacquelyn Stucker
Three: Nina van Essen
Four: Helena Rasker
Five: Miles Mykkanen
Six: Frederick Ballentine
Seven: Germán Olvera
Eight: Alex Rosen
Residentie Orkest

We Are The Lucky Ones

Rituals for a multicultural city

Codes is intended as a gift to the city of Amsterdam as it celebrates its 750th anniversary. In a city that is home to so many religions and cultures, Caers will work with the students to find rituals that are accessible and meaningful to all. While ever fewer people seem to feel an attachment to a specific religion, the yearning for connection in a polarised world is perhaps greater than ever. It is human nature to want to share strong emotions such as joy, sorrow or mourning and to find a way to express them as a community. To create a ritual everyone can feel part of, Caers and his team will return to the origins of various religions and rites, and then go back even earlier in time, to the cradle of human harmony.

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🪩 Party

Codes

Bushra El-Turk

The Egyptian singer Oum Kalthoum (c. 1900 – 1975) is still a hugely significant figure fifty years after her death. The new music theatre performance OUM combines her influential musical universe with the story Visage retrouvé by the renowned author and director Wajdi Mouawad.

She is the face of classical Arabic music and her popularity in North Africa and the Middle East far outstrips that of even the greatest opera divas and pop stars in the West. The voice of Oum Kalthoum also has a special place in the hearts of many Dutch people with Arab roots. Director Kenza Koutchoukali and composer Bushra El-Turk have drawn inspiration from the music and poetry of Kalthoum’s songs and have joined forces with singers, actors and the musicians of the Amsterdams Andalusisch Orkest to create a production that incorporates the songs in a new musical narrative. Their adaption of the book Visage retrouvé by Wajdi Mouawad forms the basis of this music theatre work, a coming-of-age story about the search for your identity, rediscovering your roots and reconciliation with a mother you thought you had lost.

Performance information:
Spoken in English | Sung in Arabic
Composition: Bushra El-Turk
Musical direction: Kanako Abe
Stage direction: Kenza Koutchoukali
Amsterdams Andalusisch Orkest

The Egyptian singer Oum Kalthoum (c. 1900 – 1975) is still a hugely significant figure fifty years after her death. The new music theatre performance OUM combines her influential musical universe with the story Visage retrouvé by the renowned author and director Wajdi Mouawad.

She is the face of classical Arabic music and her popularity in North Africa and the Middle East far outstrips that of even the greatest opera divas and pop stars in the West. The voice of Oum Kalthoum also has a special place in the hearts of many Dutch people with Arab roots. Director Kenza Koutchoukali and composer Bushra El-Turk have drawn inspiration from the music and poetry of Kalthoum’s songs and have joined forces with singers, actors and the musicians of the Amsterdams Andalusisch Orkest to create a production that incorporates the songs in a new musical narrative. Their adaption of the book Visage retrouvé by Wajdi Mouawad forms the basis of this music theatre work, a coming-of-age story about the search for your identity, rediscovering your roots and reconciliation with a mother you thought you had lost.

Sam Carl

Eva Kroon

Marc Albrecht

Naomi Dawson

AJ Glueckert

Sara Jakubiak

Michaela Schuster

Josef Wagner

Aušrinė Stundytė

In Die Frau ohne Schatten, composer Richard Strauss and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal created a multi-layered fairy tale about two couples in search of a meaningful new life in a cold, barren world.

The Empress, who is from the spirit world, needs to acquire a shadow. If she fails, her human lover, The Emperor, will turn to stone. Encouraged by her Nurse, she tries to obtain the shadow of The Dyer’s Wife. For both The Empress and The Dyer’s Wife, this signifies the start of a quest for the fulfilment of their desires.  

When Marc Albrecht conducted Die Frau ohne Schatten in 2008, it led to his appointment as chief conductor of Dutch National Opera and the Netherlands Philharmonic. When he stepped down in 2020, he had wanted to present this opera as a fitting finale to his tenure as chief conductor. Those plans had to be postponed due to the pandemic, but can now finally be executed.

The award-winning theatre and opera director Katie Mitchell is a prominent figure in the international opera world. She is known for being particularly attuned to social wrongs and inequality. At Dutch National Opera, she previously made a deep impression with her raw, realistic reading of Janáček’s Jenůfa (2018). In Die Frau ohne Schatten, The Empress’s search for a shadow is linked to the ability to have children. All grist to the mill for Mitchell, who will critically dissect the opera’s conservative ideals in her own inimitable fashion.

For Die Frau ohne Schatten, Dutch National Opera has assembled a cast of singers of the highest calibre. Acclaimed soprano Aušrinė Stundytė is making her DNO debut performing the demanding role of the Dyer’s Wife for the first time. Also making a house debut is heldentenor AJ Glueckert in the role of The Emperor. Sara Jakubiak, praised for her ‘plush-voiced, impressive soprano’, returns to DNO as his wife, The Empress. Bass-baritone Josef Wagner, who recently made a remarkable debut in Amsterdam with his perceptive and moving interpretation of The Fiddler in Humperdinck’s Königskinder (2022), will be taking on the challenging role of Barak. Last but not least, seasoned mezzo-soprano Michaela Schuster returns to Amsterdam in her signature role of The Nurse.

Die Frau ohne Schatten

Rosemary Joshua

Camille Delaforge

In partnership with Opera Zuid and Nederlandse Reisopera, Dutch National Opera has developed a new concert experience. Together, the companies 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 is interpreted by a new generation of opera singers under the leadership of the young Baroque specialist Camille Delaforge.

Henry Purcell’s gripping drama, based on Virgil’s The Aeneid, tells the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas and his love affair, thwarted by witchcraft, with the Carthaginian queen Dido. As the sails of the ship carrying Aeneas away from Carthage disappear as dots over the horizon, we hear Dido’s famous lament. “Remember me, but forget my fate”, she sings while she goes to her death, calling on those around her to remember everything about her except her tragic end.

The programme also includes Saul and the Witch of Endor (1693), another work by Purcell in which witchcraft plays a major role. The Biblical king Saul, who has issued a ban on fortune-telling, calls on a clairvoyant witch to tell him what future lies in store for him, and discovers his end is near.

Dutch National Opera, Opera Zuid and Nederlandse Reisopera are once again joining forces to create opportunities for talent development. Led by up-and-coming conductor Camille Delaforge, the talented young performers of Dutch National Opera Studio, together with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and the DNO Young Baroque Voices, consisting of a promising group of young conservatorium students, will be tackling Purcell’s enthralling Baroque repertoire. Delaforge will be using musicians from her own Ensemble Il Caravaggio for the basso continuo.

Performance information:
Opera in three acts (concert performance)
Sung in English
Libretto: Nahum Tate
Musical direction: Camille Delaforge
Stage direction: Rosemary Joshua
Dramaturgy: Jasmijn van Wijnen
Vocals: Dutch National Opera Studio, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Musicians of Il Caravaggio, DNO Young Baroque Voices
Co-production with Nederlandse Reisopera and Opera Zuid

Dido and Aeneas (concert performance)

Adam

Maggie

Christie

Eric

Anna

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Step into the world of ballet and opera. We look forward to welcoming you back in our theatre. Click on the link below to view our programme.

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https://www.operaballet.nl/en/your-visit/visitor-information/opening-hours-address

Nationale Opera & Ballet (Stopera)

191

72

A Song for the Moon

Die ersten Menschen

Die ersten Menschen

Idomeneo, re di Creta

We Are The Lucky Ones

Codes

OUM

OUM

Die Frau ohne Schatten

Dido and Aeneas (concert performance)

December

Nationale Opera & Ballet (Stopera)

191

72

A Song for the Moon

Die ersten Menschen

Die ersten Menschen

Idomeneo, re di Creta

We Are The Lucky Ones

Codes

OUM

OUM

Die Frau ohne Schatten

Dido and Aeneas (concert performance)

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December