FAITH NO MORE: LOHENGRIN's LAMENT
The Dutch National Opera's new production places Lohengrin in a barren factory hall. A place where amid the bleakness of everyday life the promise of a miracle is cultivated. A place that hosts a performance in which singers, orchestra and conductor excel. >>>
Show no mercy!
Opera Vlaanderen opens the new season with Milo Rau's production of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito. A production in which Rau unleashes his "theater of reality" on Mozart's last opera, creating two performances in one. A schizophrenic production that will undoubtedly split minds. >>>
silent scream!
La Monnaie in Brussels opens the new season with a world premiere. In CASSANDRA, Belgian composer Bernard Foccroulle and librettist Matthew Jocelyn touch on a very topical theme: environmental activism and social inertia. About voices that are not heard. >>>
Skeletons of Society
After his 2017 production of Salome, Ivo van Hove returns to The Dutch National Opera with Kurt Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. >>>
Being LudwigOn June 13, 1886, Ludwig II, king of Bavaria, was found dead in Lake Starnberg. A man for whom art was not a luxury but a necessity and who enabled Richard Wagner, through generous donations, to complete his Ring des Nibelungen and build the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth (for which eternal thanks) >>>
Beyond the gilded stage: Parsifal & Tannhäuser in Bayreuth
This year's visit to Bayreuth was about productions where the boundaries of the stage were stretched, and exceeded. There was Augmented Reality in Parsifal but Tobias Kratzer's Tannhäuser was a textbook example that ideas carry a production, not technology. >>>
The Steampunk Ring
A tale in images of Der Ring des Nibelungen for which inspiration was sought in Steampunk - that combination of nature and digitless science in a world that can be simultaneously antique and futuristic. The images were generated with AI software. >>>
Mahler and the Resurrection
To commemorate the bombing of Rotterdam (on 14 May 1940), the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra was touring a number of places in the Netherlands with Gustav Mahler's 2nd symphony. On 16 May they paid Amsterdam a visit. The city where Mahler himself conducted the Dutch premiere of this symphony in 1904. >>>
HEAVY METAL OPERA
If there is one opera that deserves the name 'Heavy Metal opera' it's Elektra: Richard Strauss' screaming-for-vengeance opera that brought domestic relations to dystopian lows and drama in the genre of opera to new musical heights. >>>
UPLOAD (LIVING IN A DATA STREAM)
Michel van Aa’s opera UPLOAD explores the transhuman existence. A life in cyberspace without the burden of a physical body. Homo Deus in the Blockchain. >>>
A DESCENT INTO THE NIBELHEIM OF THE MIND
WAGNER & HEAVY METAL on music & books.
From ' HEAVY' (Dan Franklin) to a heavy book 'WAGNERISM' (Alex Ross). Plus Wilhelm Furtwängler in Italy and (a lot) more. >>> WAGNER AT THE MOVIES
Toying around with image and sound. Combining the music of Richard Wagner with film footage. >>>
THE DAY OF WAGNER & HEAVY METAL
BEETHOVEN's MIGHTY NINE
He would have entered his 254nd year of life, were it not that he left our earthly realms at the age of 56. Without new music by Ludwig van Beethoven for almost two centuries now, all we are left with is more of the same, in different versions. From Furtwängler to Chailly; this is an inventory, guaranteed subjective and by no means complete, of Ludwig's symphony cycles. >>>
MORE REVIEWS >>
A gateway from the world of HEAVY METAL to OPERA >> |
ABOUTThis website wants to be a musical journey from the blues-based hardrock I grew up with to the 19th century music dramas of Richard Wagner I became so enamored with later in my life.
The music of Wagner feels, more than the music of any other (classical) composer I know, like a natural extension of the hardrock and heavy metal I grew up with. His music can be a place for the metal aficionados who might have reached a point of arrival in their listening experience and might be receptive for something that goes beyond the sound of thunderous bass drums and screaming guitarsolos. Something else, but something that is equally, if not more, satisfying to ears and soul. For me Richard Wagner was the door to new worlds of sound. A guide on a journey through a musical landscape that is still ongoing. Join in and enjoy the ride ... - Wouter de Moor 
Recensies en blogs in het Nederlands Lohengrin in de fabriek, een genadeloze La Clemenza di Tito bij Opera Vlaanderen en Mahagony van Ivo van Hove nu ook in Amsterdam. Verder een opera over klimaatactivisme in Brussel en een bezoek aan Bayreuth met Tannhäuser en Parsifal. In het archief o.a.: De Wederopstanding met Mahler als herdenking van het bombardement op Rotterdam van 1940 en UPLOAD van Michel van der Aa (science fiction in een operahuis). |
