Katie Mitchell places Richard Strauss' grandiose DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN, an opera brimming with symbolism and supernatural mysticism, in a cold world of (gun) violence. With her, “Die Frau" is not a fairy tale but a bleak thriller full of moral tension and ostentatious displays of power.  © Ruth Walz / DNO She may not have a shadow, but she certainly has great music. Massive, lush, and luxurious (Gurre-Lieder, eat your heart out!). Die Frau ohne Schatten is not Strauss’s best opera—its storyline is too unbalanced for that—but it is arguably the opera into which he poured some of his finest music. At the Dutch National Opera, the first three rows of seats had to be removed to make space for the 130-piece orchestra. Their sacrifice was not in vain.  © Ruth Walz / DNO Katie Mitchell’s new production of Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten is a bold, gripping, and unapologetically modern reinterpretation of a notoriously complex opera. Instead of the traditional fairy-tale setting, Mitchell opts, in her own words, for a “feminist sci-fi thriller.” She presents a version stripped of ornamentation, with clear narrative focus and heightened emotional intensity—without entirely sacrificing the dreamlike character that defines the work. Mitchell is a theatre-maker with a distinctly activist edge. A self-declared feminist—more relevant than ever in an era of mounting threats to women’s rights—she lives and works according to her principles. For instance, she refuses to fly for ecological reasons and is known for her radical reworkings of classic texts. While she is praised for the urgency and vision that define her work, she has also faced criticism for “butchering” classical works rather than interpreting them.  © Ruth Walz / DNO At the heart of Die Frau ohne Schatten lies a multilayered, metaphysical narrative, inspired by Goethe's Faust, Mozart’s Zauberflöte, and mythical archetypes—an opera full of spirits, royalty, moral trials, and a symbolic search for humanity and for what makes a woman a woman (namely, her fertility). It is not a story that demands rational clarity; rather, it unfolds through a kind of dream-logic where symbolism and emotional intuition outweigh cause and effect. But Mitchell deliberately chooses rationality and structure. She constructs a tight, psychologically coherent framework around the story and introduces a “realism” that some may find too reductive or alienating-certainly those attached to the mystical, open structure of the original. But for me, it worked. Her clarity brought structure and emotional focus to a story that often remains nebulous and diffuse. Her greatest achievement may be how she transforms the opera’s mystical vagueness into something psychologically tangible. By staging a "realistic", sometimes clinical world—complete with movements in slow-motion (a technique she also employed in her production of George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence)—she draws out the cinematic quality of Strauss’s orchestral interludes. It often felt like watching a series or movie.  © Ruth Walz / DNO One of Mitchell’s strongest choices was to stage the otherwise invisible Keikobad (the king of the spirit-world) as a silent character. With his gazelle head, long black coat, and slow, controlled movements, he became a disturbing presence—a silent, looming force that haunted the action. The use of animal masks frequently evoked David Lynch’s Inland Empire. A film, with its potent scenes embedded in an overall sense of disorientation, that had in common with this production that the things that remained diffuse and unclear (and there were still quite a few of them, despite Mitchell's dissection of the libretto) did not get in the way of an immersive viewing and listening experience.  Inland Empire / David Lynch (2006) Not all her choices convinced. Keikobad’s henchmen pointing guns at everyone at nearly every moment was a heavy-handed reminder that all action occurred under coercion. It became gratuitous. Likewise, the scenes where these henchmen shot characters who had outlived their narrative usefulness felt forced and overly literal. In those moments, Mitchell’s tight direction tipped into overstatement.  © Ruth Walz / DNO In her dark reinterpretation of the opera’s ending, Mitchell again deviates from Hofmannsthal’s libretto (good—the ending is arguably its weakest point). Where the original veers toward a forced, hollow reconciliation, Mitchell opts for a somber, oppressive close. The dream doesn’t end in triumph, but in exhaustion. It’s a daring but effective choice. The audience left the theatre under a moon of melancholy, with grateful minds.  © Ruth Walz / DNO Setting aside the staging and direction, Die Frau ohne Schatten is, above all, a triumph of music. Conductor Marc Albrecht and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra made a passionate and magnificent case for this being perhaps Strauss’s most ambitious score. In this music, the erotic tension of Salome, the visceral impact of Elektra (Keikobad’s leitmotif clearly references Agamemnon’s), and the illustrative brilliance of Der Rosenkavalier all meet. Amid the sumptuous orchestration lie intimate, chamber-like moments of stunning beauty. One of those was delivered by guest cellist Floris Mijnders, brought in especially from the Munich Philharmonic. With mournful lyricism, he cut through the orchestral density to remarkable effect. In that orchestral storm—which rarely erupts into full tutti but instead pulses with constant undercurrents—the singers had to hold their ground, and by and large, they did. The voices of Aušrinė Stundytė (Die Färberin) and Michaela Schuster (Die Amme) may have lost some lyrical sheen over the years, but both singers brought depth and conviction to their roles. Their characters came to life with an emotional intensity well-matched to Mitchell’s psychological approach.  © Ruth Walz / DNO In the cast, Josef Wagner stood out. His portrayal of Barak, the husband of Die Färberin, was warm, strong, and lyrical—a role he gave emotional depth and gravitas. AJ Glueckert was a solid Emperor, the husband of the woman searching for her shadow. Daniela Köhler, a seasoned Strauss and Wagner soprano, took on the Empress—the titular woman without a shadow—with dramatic command. Whatever she lacked in vocal expressiveness, she made up for in a portrayal that convincingly conveyed her character’s inner struggle. A subtle but striking element was the children’s choir, who sang the voices of the unborn children. Hidden from view, their voices echoed like whispers from another world—worthy of a horror film. For me, Katie Mitchell’s direction of Frau ohne Schatten achieved what good Regietheater should: it opened up a classic opera to a new audience—not by simplifying it, but by illuminating it from a contemporary, and perhaps unexpected, angle. With powerful imagery, psychological depth, and orchestral brilliance that outshone everything, this production was an ideal entry point into one of the most enigmatic masterpieces of the twentieth century. It made me curious about the DNO production from 2008—a colorful, fairy-tale version staged by Andreas Homoki. Die Frau ohne Schatten, Richard Strauss / Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam, 6 May 2025 Conductor Marc Albrecht Nederlands Philharmonic Choir of Dutch National Opera Regie Katie Mitchell Der Kaiser AJ Glueckert Die Kaiserin Daniela Köhler Die Amme Michaela Schuster Der Geisterbote Sam Carl Barak der Färber Josef Wagner Sein Weib (Die Färberin) Aušrinė Stundytė - Wouter de Moor
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Dutch National Opera's production of IDOMENEO, in a direction of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, is visually striking and musically polished, but lacks the emotional depth and dramatic urgency to truly move. It’s a production that captivates the eye more than the heart.  © Filip Van Roe / DNO Mozart’s Idomeneo, re di Creta (1781) marks a significant moment in his development as an opera composer. Commissioned by the Munich court, it was an opportunity for the young Mozart to showcase his talent in the prestigious genre of opera seria — a genre already considered somewhat outdated at the time, but one he sought to revitalize with innovative musical ideas. Idomeneo combines the formal grandeur of Gluck and the Italian tradition with Mozart’s own emerging sensitivity to human psychology and orchestral refinement. The work is ambitious, it experiments (over half a century before Wagner!) with the through-composed operatic form, it’s dramatically versatile, and musically rich — though not without structural problems. Giambattista Varesco’s libretto is uneven, the action occasionally illogical, and even Mozart struggled to create a coherent whole. Still, Idomeneo remains one of his most fascinating operas: complex and forward-thinking, yet dramaturgically fragile.  © Filip Van Roe / DNO In collaboration with Japanese visual artist Chiharu Shiota, choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui transformed the stage for Idomeneo into a web of long red threads, physically connecting singers, dancers, and actors to one another and to the set. It’s a visually striking concept: these threads make visible the underlying relationships and ties of fate, reminiscent of an extended Norn scene — threads of destiny, threads of memory. Cherkaoui’s choreographic background is unmistakable in every scene. In opera, there is often a great deal of time when characters are on stage but not singing or directly involved in the action. What do you do with that time? It's an interesting question. Many opera productions suffer from stiff stage direction, with characters who are present but visibly lost when they have nothing to sing.  © Filip Van Roe / DNO In Cherkaoui’s direction, dancers and singers form a moving chorus that provides commentary on the action through choreography. The result is a staging that breathes visually, one that feels pulsing and alive. But this constant movement has its downside. While the dance is meaningful at first, it gradually loses focus and dramatic strength. At times, the production becomes more of an "exercise in movement" — beautiful to watch, but with a cloying aftertaste, as if something essential is missing: intensity, tension, sharpness. This feeling is reinforced by the sense that the onstage drama is often sublimated rather than embodied — the ballet smooths over where it should cut deep. Musically, the evening brought mixed results. Cecilia Molinari (Idamante) and Anna El-Khashem (Ilia) delivered strong and nuanced performances. Daniel Behle as Idomeneo was solid, though he audibly struggled with his “applause” aria — the virtuosity that should give the aria its brilliance was lacking. Perhaps it’s simply not one of Mozart’s strongest pieces. Even in Nicolai Gedda’s version on Colin Davis's live recording — one of my favorite Mozart opera recordings — I find little to enjoy in it. Jacquelyn Wagner as Elettra was disappointing; her portrayal remained flat, whereas Elettra’s fury should be one of the opera’s expressive highlights.  © Filip Van Roe / DNO The ending Cherkaoui devised for Idomeneo was one in the tradition of Lars von Trier — a forcibly dramatic conclusion in which, contrary to the libretto, Idamante and Ilia are killed by Idomeneo. It made no sense. The entire opera follows Idomeneo’s anxiety for his son’s safety. He tries everything to avoid sacrificing him to Neptune, even offering himself in his place. And when Neptune finally offers a way out — relinquishing his crown to Idamante in exchange for the boy’s life — Idomeneo instead murders both Idamante and his beloved Ilia. Again, it makes no sense. Deviations from what the libretto and music communicate must still maintain a relationship with them. An alternative interpretation can challenge or even contradict the original intent, but it must remain emotionally and dramatically grounded — you can’t simply erase the text. This Idomeneo is visually enchanting and at times musically glowing, but ultimately lacks the dramatic edge and emotional core that can truly bring the opera to life. The red threads stretched across the stage make many things visible but don’t always manage to move. What remains is an elegant, aesthetic production that intrigues but doesn’t cut very deep — a work of art you admire, but don’t fully feel. IDOMENEO, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Dutch National Opera, 20 February 2026 Conductor Laurence Cummings Netherlands Chamber Orchestra Director and Choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui Set Design Chiharu Shiota Idomeneo Daniel Behle Idamante Cecilia Molinari Ilia Anna El-Khashem Elettra Jacquelyn Wagner Arbace Linard Vrielink Chorus of Dutch National Opera Dancers of Eastman A co-production with Grand Théâtre de Genève and Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg - Wouter de Moor
The contrast between baroque opulence and the bleak coldness of its characters is wonderfully displayed in this SALOME from Opera Ballet Vlaanderen. In a staging by Ersan Mondtag in which costumes and makeup evoke the dystopian graphic novels of Enki Bilal.  © Annemie Augustijns The Catharsis of Horror It could be argued that horror can serve as a convenient outlet for the dark corners of the mind, a means by which the unspeakable is temporarily articulated and the repressed given a fleeting respite. At its best, horror interweaves the primal vibrations of fear with an aesthetic pleasure that both unsettles and compels, allowing one to shudder without really being in danger, to look into the abyss while standing safely at the edge. Horror can offer catharsis—not just the dispelling of fear, but a kind of exorcism, a purification of the unspeakable. It offers, if you dare say so, a refuge from the lurid, a stage on which the grotesque imagination can play without contaminating the waking world. Horror as a Mirror of Reality In an era when horror is not merely an artistic subterfuge but an everyday reality in which the world news is a catalogue of disasters from which a new page is turned every day—one could argue that the genre is becoming something more than mere distraction. It takes the form of a mirror that reflects the horrors of the times with a perverse and unflinching clarity. In this way, it offers a paradoxical respite: horror naturally creates order out of chaos and establishes a framework within which to engage with the incomprehensible. The worst is already imagined, shaped, contained in the story, and so one can entertain the fiction of control. It is, in short, a buffer—an emotional airbag, if you like—that softens the unrelenting impact of the atrocities of reality. The Aesthetic Dimension of Horror The best examples of the genre achieve a peculiar alchemy, where the repulsive passes into the mesmerising, the monstrous into the sublime. This is the territory of the romantic: an intuitive recognition that reality, in its unadorned state, can be too grim to bear, that the world, stripped of mystery and metaphor, becomes intolerable. Horror, in this sense, offers not just an escape but a strengthening of the soul: the illusion of meaning grafted onto the meaningless. “Romanticism is teaching the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite.” “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.”  Salome / Jean Benner (1899) The Grand Theatre of Horror: Opera as Its Natural Home It is hardly surprising that horror should find a willing accomplice in opera. Both are genres of excess, realms where emotion, unbridled and unapologetic, reigns supreme. Opera, in its very nature, is a theatre of extremity where love and hate, ecstasy and despair, life and death, are all interwoven in a spectacle of poetic inevitability. For passionate self-ignition and that insatiable urge to find eternity in an ultimate and orgasmic moment, opera offers a perfect stage. Finding beauty in the hideous perhaps nowhere finds a more succinct setting than in Salome—Richard Strauss’s fevered, lurid opera in which this synthesis is perceived at its most intoxicating. A First Encounter with Salome There are those operas that, immediately on first encounter, leave a crushing impression. It was on a warm day in June, almost a decade ago, and I was on my way with a colleague to a park in Amsterdam to watch an opera on a big screen. - “I have two CDs at home,” the colleague had said, “and one of them is a birthday present.” - “It doesn't last longer than an average movie, and you can always leave in between,” was my reassuring reply. The opera in question was Salome (Dutch National Opera, Ivo van Hove). The beautiful weather and Malin Byström did the rest. And the music by Richard Strauss, of course. Enthralled, my colleague, with his self-proclaimed insensitivity to music, sat through an opera that, after all, is not immediately considered an entry-level example of the genre.  The Apparition (Salome) / Gustave Moreau (1876) Salome is a work that relishes contradiction, fusing the primal with the refined, the obscene with the sublime. In many ways, it is a music-theatrical rendering of Gustave Moreau's painting of Salome. Every director faces a particular challenge: how do you complement a score that is already brimming with the vividly cinematic?  © Annemie Augustijns A Soviet Salome In his production for Opera Vlaanderen, director Ersan Mondtag places the work in a socio-realistic Soviet aesthetic. In his version, Herod’s palace is transformed into a Soviet-Russian fortress—a place where the coldness and power hunger of a totalitarian regime converge. A site of doom, where the baroque yet raw décor evokes the graphic novels of Enki Bilal: a world of faded colors, expressive makeup, and a dystopian atmosphere that perfectly complements the dramatic intensity of Strauss’ score. Mondtag is known for his radical reinterpretations of classical works, and in this Salome, he makes a striking change to the plot. While the original libretto ends with Salome’s brutal execution, Mondtag allows her to survive. Instead, a palace revolution unfolds, with a group of women rising against Herod’s tyranny. This results in a chilling final image: the dictator is overthrown, and Salome remains—not as a victim, but as a survivor. Mondtag has not always made successful choices in previous productions for Opera Vlaanderen (He butchered Der Schmied von Gent and over-interpreted Der Silbersee), but this twist works surprisingly well. Herod as a dictator of Belarus, ultimately crushed by the very resistance he provoked. The contemporary political dimension Mondtag introduces does not hinder the story; his direction fully honors the dynamics of the music and text.  Herod (OperaVision) Balancing Modernity and Theatricality Mondtag’s vision is, crucially, one of balance. He eschews the minimalism of so many modern productions, does not clad his cast in the drab uniformity of corporate realism. Instead, his staging embraces theatricality without lapsing into the cabaretesque excesses that marred, for instance, his production of Der Silbersee. This staging cultivates an atmosphere that is both evocative and eerily dreamlike. Yet, for all its visual grandeur, it is in the orchestration of human interaction that the production finds its true power. The movement, the gesture, the glance—each is rendered with a precision that elevates the performance, endowing the characters with a striking immediacy.  Jochanaan and Salome (OperaVision) A Visceral Salome In this feast for the eyes and ears, Allison Cook’s Salome explodes off the stage, with Michael Kupfer-Radecky’s Jochanaan as her obsession (beyond life). The eroticism and frenzy that Strauss’ music so powerfully conveys are translated here into a physically charged performance that never loses its intensity. Thomas Blondelle both sings and acts a fantastic Herod—someone who, after issuing Salome’s death sentence, ultimately meets his own downfall. The Dance of the Seven Veils unfolds as a a tango of power and desire between Salome and Herod. Soon, the women of the palace household and the men of the palace guard are drawn into its fevered rhythm. But in time, the balance shifts—Salome and the women cast the men aside, an omen of the reckoning to come. At last, Salome claims her 'reward': the severed head of Jochanaan. In this moment of grim triumph, the women seize control, toppling the old order. Salome stands victorious, with the prophet's head held high - a symbol of pride, of a woman who has shattered the patriarch's rule and emerged as a heroine of her own making. With this Salome, Mondtag demonstrates that a director can honor the essence of a work while infusing it with a bold and singular vision. The result is a mesmerizing production that is a feast for the senses--rich in spectacle and subversion. And in its palace revolution, one can only hope to discern a prophecy: the inevitable downfall of tyrants, not only onstage but in the world beyond. SALOME, Richard Strauss / Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (review based on stream of OperaVision) Salome: Allison Cook Herodes: Thomas Blondelle Herodias: Angela Denoke Jochanaan: Michael Kupfer-Radecky Narraboth: Denzil Delaere Orchestra Opera Ballet Vlaanderen Symphonic Orchestra Conductor: Alejo Pérez Direction, scenography and costumes: Ersan Mondtag - Wouter de Moor
The Dutch National Opera brings 'Die ersten Menschen' from Rudi Stephan, a compelling work that blends late-Romantic intensity with psychological depth, making it a significant yet long forgotten gem of early 20th-century opera.  © Hugo Thomassen / DNO In the enchanting world of post-Wagnerian opera, it is remarkable to notice that Wagner's influence may have been even greater outside the realm of opera than within it. Perhaps even more than in opera, Richard Wagner left his mark on the world beyond. In film, for example—a medium that did not yet exist during Wagner’s lifetime. Film music would draw directly and extensively from his use of leitmotifs. His influence can be heard in the soundtracks of the 20th and 21st centuries. While 20th-century operas distinguish themselves from Wagner, stepping beyond the boundaries of tonality (Berg, Schoenberg) and embracing extreme dissonance (Ligeti, Penderecki), creating more alienating and unpredictable listening experiences that stray from Wagner’s direct, expressive musical language, film music built upon Wagner's techniques in ways that many modern operas did not.  Wagner’s influence on opera after him was, of course, still significant. Where his impact on German opera was undeniable, his influence on Italian opera was even nothing short of revolutionary. In response to Wagner, Italian opera underwent a profound transformation, resulting in fundamental stylistic adaptations. Verdi broke away from traditional number opera in Otello and Falstaff, while Puccini later used leitmotifs to create dramatic unity. Composers such as Pietro Mascagni (Cavalleria rusticana), Ruggero Leoncavallo (Pagliacci), and Umberto Giordano (Andrea Chénier) adopted Wagner’s orchestral richness and continuous musical flow, incorporating them into darker, psychologically charged dramas, influenced by Wagner’s intensity. This led to more through-composed forms, breaking away from rigid aria structures. The world of post-Wagnerian German opera is one of evolution rather than revolution. Composers such as Richard Strauss and Hans Pfitzner refined Wagnerian principles while developing their own styles. Richard Strauss expanded Wagnerian orchestration and chromaticism, with Elektra pushing harmonic tension toward modernism. Hans Pfitzner retained Wagner’s orchestral richness and leitmotifs but blended them with Renaissance polyphony in Palestrina.  Rudi Stephan (right) and his family In the world after Tristan und Isolde, we also encounter names like Franz Schreker and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who, after a period of being forgotten (canceled by the Nazis), have returned to considerable (Korngold) to moderate (Schreker) prominence. Another composer who was long forgotten is Rudi Stephan.  In 1915, Stephan enlisted in the German army. "As long as nothing happens to my head—there are still so many beautiful things in it," he said to his mother upon departure. Ten days after leaving Worms, he was shot in the head by a bullet from a Russian sniper on the Eastern Front. "I can't bear it anymore," were his last words before, in an attempt to escape the horrors of war, he raised his head too far above the trench. A promising composer was tragically taken too soon. Stephan had already composed several orchestral works, as well as pieces for solo violin and ensembles. His opera Die ersten Menschen was his first major work and had just been completed when war broke out in 1914. It premiered posthumously in Frankfurt in 1920. Although a few performances followed, Stephan's name faded into oblivion. However, as a recent rediscovery shows, Die ersten Menschen is a fascinating addition to the early 20th-century opera repertoire. Its late-Romantic style aligns with the musical language of Max Reger and Franz Schreker but possesses enough individuality to suggest that Stephan would have developed in his own, unique direction.  The libretto of Die ersten Menschen was written by Otto Borngräber, based on his own play of the same name. That play, an erotic mystery drama, was banned throughout the Kingdom of Bavaria after its first performance in Munich in 1912. Borngräber based the story on the biblical Genesis and the origins of humanity. Transforming biblical drama into opera was nothing new—Richard Strauss had proven its success with Salome (based on a play by Oscar Wilde, which itself was inspired by a short biblical passage). And a potential scandal only helped. (Strauss famously remarked that the “scandal of Salome” earned him a villa in Garmisch.) The opera begins when Adam and Eve have two adult sons, Cain and Abel. The characters are: Adahm (bass-baritone), Chawa (soprano), Kajin (baritone) and Chabel (lyric tenor). Adahm has grown with creation and is no longer the attractive young man Chawa once fell for. "But then the time came. I just grew on and out of me grew man," he sings. He plunges fully into farming and animal husbandry, while Chawa remains stuck in a phase dominated by primary, hormonal drifts. In the opera, she acts like a sensual, horny woman who feels trapped in her circumstances.  © Ruth-Walz / DNO Chabel experiences a revelation in which he discovers a higher power, bigger and older than Adahm, and names this being God. Thus, religion is born: the evolution from Homo Sapiens to Homo Religiosus. He demands a sacrifice and the construction of a temple (the sacrifice takes place by slitting the throat of a toy rabbit, embellished with stage blood). Chawa briefly finds meaning in this, but soon realizes that her situation remains unchanged. Adahm embraces Chabel’s religious vision but remains distant from Chawa. Kajin, on the other hand, fiercely resists. He does not desire a god but a wild, untamed woman. When Chawa mistakes her son Chabel for the young Adahm in the dark, and Chabel is drawn to her, the situation escalates. Kajin, who has long desired his mother, sees in her the wild woman he craves. When Chabel is once again favored, Kajin loses control: he kills his brother and has sex with his mother. Chawa’s desires are unintentionally fulfilled, but the death of her favorite son overshadows everything. This tragedy brings Chawa and Adahm back together; they essentially begin humanity anew. Kajin is banished to the forest, where he continues his search for a woman.  © Bart Grieten / DNO Director Calixto Bieito focuses entirely on the sexual tensions and neuroses of Chawa and her sons. Bieito more often seeks extremes in his productions and often this flattens the richness and versatility of the source material. This is also the case here. Perhaps surprisingly, I found his Parsifal in Germany some years ago - in which he set the grail knights in a post-apocalyptic world, like a kind of Parsifal episode of The Walking Dead, one of the few productions in which his approach really worked (perhaps because he really went all-out there). The action largely takes place around a table, the stage for conflict and desires. Initially, the table is laden with fruits and flowers, but as the drama progresses, the scene becomes increasingly chaotic. (“Don’t play with your food,” is what your parents always said—but the first humans don’t care.)  © Bart Grieten / DNO Annette Dasch shines as Chawa, a woman driven by lust and frustration. Her acting, as always expressive, and singing make her a perfect fit for the role. She moves seductively across the table, while Adahm, played by bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, remains stoic, focusing on his work—on his laptop. Ketelsen convincingly portrays the distant father, while his sons, initially dressed neatly in tuxedos, slowly lose control. Leigh Melrose as Kajin masterfully brings the role of the rejected child to life. In the Bible, his sacrifice is refused, while Chabel's is accepted. In the opera, it is the parents' stated preference for the gentle Chabel that drives him to anger. Along with dreamy and unworldly acting, John Osborn's impressive, lyrical singing makes him a perfectly cast Chabel. As far as I am concerned, the standout in a very strongly cast performance. That performance takes place on the front stage, with the orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Kwamé Ryan, placed behind a translucent cloth on the back stage.  © Bart Grieten / DNO Die ersten Menschen is a fascinating opera that digs deep into human instincts and the primal history of humanity. The drama of the opera deliciously chafes against the drama of the daily news - a drama that is cold, unpleasant and disturbing - and slowly massages it away with a music whose tingling chromaticism, while certainly not shunning the grand gesture, has a pleasing sense of understatement. Music, art must be about something, always, and all the way now, it must have substance, it must be the real thing. And Stephan's opera has that. An opera that besides offering titillating, full-blooded drama has the added drama of a composer who saw the promise of everything he had left in him broken in the bud. Die ersten Menschen, Rudi Stephan / Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam, 24 January 2025 Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor: Kwamé Ryan Director: Calixto Bieito Adahm:Kyle Ketelsen Chawa: Annette Dasch Kajin:Leigh Melrose Chabel:John Osborn - Wouter de Moor
Reading time: 9:20 minutes With NOSFERATU, Robert Eggers fulfills his lifelong dream to give F.W. Murnau's century-old horror film a modern, 21st-century update.  Dracula, Nosferatu, Orlok. Everyone's favorite bloodsucker has been reincarnated once again. This time, in a film by Robert Eggers, who is fulfilling a lifelong dream by giving Murnau's century-old film a 21st-century update. Updates don’t necessarily mean improvements (as this computerage has made abundantly clear) but in this case, they don't have to. The unrelenting fascination with canonical (horror) cinema makes a new Nosferatu an event, and the curiosity paired with the excitement that accompanies it cannot be sufficiently valued, especially in these dreary times. Nosferatu, phantom of the night, a symphony of horror, scourge of humanity, was brought to film over 100 years ago by director F.W. Murnau, screenwriter Henrik Galeen, and designer Albin Grau. The story can be considered familiar. The first cinematic adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula was a case of copyright theft. The creators attempted to obscure this by changing the names of the main characters: Dracula became Orlok, Jonathan Harker became Thomas Hutter, his wife Mina was renamed Ellen and the boss of Jonathan Harker, Peter Hawkins, merged with the psychiatric patient Renfield into the role of Knock. Stoker's widow wasn’t fooled and successfully had the film ordered out of circulation. She even managed to have the court mandate that all existing copies be destroyed. That effort, thankfully, failed—darkness be praised—and the rest is film history. Nosferatu may well be the most iconic horror film ever made, one that continues to capture the imagination to this day.
A film, or any work of art, generates its greatest power through the story the audiences can add to it themselves—when the film takes on a life of its own in the viewer’s mind. Murnau's film feeds this storytelling in ways few others do. The lack of sound and the gritty, high-contrast black-and-white visuals amplify the imagination, making the movie feel like found footage. With its documentary-like quality and the appearance of the actor with the perfect name, Max Schreck, Nosferatu almost looks like a real vampire caught on camera (a concept explored in Shadow of a Vampire, where Willem Dafoe portrays Schreck as an actual vampire). Nosferatu is definitive in its rawness—a silent film for which hundreds of soundtracks have since been composed, from classical symphonic ones to modern rock. Watching the film accompanied by live music remains a unique experience.  Werner Herzog was the first to venture into a remake. It was more of a free adaptation than a remake as he himself said. A tribute to the greatest film that had ever come out of Germany. With his remake, Herzog wanted to build a bridge to the grandfather of German cinema, Murnau. A bridge that necessarily skipped a generation because the generation of Herzog's potential film father(s) was tainted with a Nazi past. In Herzog’s film, unencumbered by copyright issues, Orlok is once again Dracula, and Thomas Hutter is Jonathan Harker (his wife, however, is Lucy, Mina’s friend in Stoker’s novel who is notably absent from Murnau’s film, leaving her name vacant - or something like that). In Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani, Herzog finds a couple that is incredibly photogenic and, as a modern incarnation of Orlok and Ellen, refers to the era of silent film. Herzog’s Nosferatu is a poetic meditation on isolation and decay. It doesn’t try to be a horror film. Kinski’s Dracula is a socially awkward figure, someone who has lost all social skills through centuries of isolation. Kinski’s vampire is menacing without ever trying to be scary. His haunting presence, combined with Herzog’s understated style, creates a profoundly unsettling experience. The film’s pale, chilling ending heightens this unease. Jonathan Harker’s wife sacrifices herself, as in Murnau’s version, to free the world from Nosferatu’s curse. But Herzog adds an epilogue: Jonathan himself, transformed into a vampire by Dracula’s bite, rides off into the horizon in daylight, suggesting that Nosferatu’s curse not only persists but has evolved into a more resilient form. The woman who saves the world (or not). A reminder: Mina Harker: Stoker (1897) Ellen Hutter: Murnau (1922) Lucy Harker: Herzog (1979) Ellen Hutter: Eggers (2024) “It's a scary film. It's a horror movie. It's a Gothic horror movie. And I do think that there hasn't been an old-school Gothic movie that's actually scary in a while. And I think that the majority of audiences will find this one to be the case.” (Robert Eggers) In the 21st century—an era where the light just won't break through—a creature of the night will find its natural habitat. Robert Eggers seems attuned to this. While his motivation leans more toward entertainment than catharsis, Eggers understands that the time is ripe for an “old-school gothic horror film that’s genuinely scary.” Eggers consciously places his version of Nosferatu within the tradition of vampire films sparked by the 1922 original. Drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as Hammer movies and the Mel Brooks spoof Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Eggers adds his own flair by adjusting and introducing key scenes. For instance, Knock’s death is altered: Hutter kills him with a stake through the heart, a moment where Knock seems to regain his sanity, realizing that his devotion to Orlok hasn’t secured him eternal life but left him as vulnerable as anyone else. Unlike Herzog, Eggers reverts to the names of the original. For the roles, he cast Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter. Nicholas Hoult is Thomas Hutter. (Hoult is no stranger to the Dracula repertoire; he was previously seen as Renfield in the film of the same name in which Nicolas Cage smirks his way through the role of Dracula.) Simon McBurney, theatre director with a creditable acting track record, is Knock and Willem Dafoe returns after Egger's previous film, The Lighthouse, as the doctor of occult affairs, Albin Eberhart Von Franz (the Van Helsing-role and yes, the name refers to Albin Grau). Bill Skarsgård is transformed beyond recognition into a monstrous Count Orlok.  The film is unmistakably a product of our time—a time in which buildup and proper tempo are often sacrificed for action and rapid editing. Despite the fact that Eggers demonstrated a strong sense of pacing in his previous films The Witch and The Lighthouse, Nosferatu too falls prey to the trend of keeping tension arcs short. Yet the film still feels overly long, mainly because it contains too many scenes and burdens its characters with too much (mediocre) dialogue. It seems as though the film fears its audience won’t understand it without everything being explained, leaving little to no room for ambiguity. For the soundtrack, Eggers wanted to rely on the sound of instruments from the period in which the film is set—a (fictional) 19th-century Germany. No electronics, then. Composer Robin Carolan, who also collaborated with Eggers on The Northman, stays in the spirit of James Bernard, the soundtrack composer of many Hammer films. While the soundtrack didn’t particularly stand out while watching the film—it’s no Popol Vuh for Herzog’s Nosferatu—my appreciation for it grew after listening to it separately. It’s a beautiful symphonic score with enough dissonance to avoid excessive sweetness, although it could have used a bit more edginess in the final scene. The visuals also reference romantic artworks. It looks stunning, and lovers of classic gothic horror will delight in it, but the film feels like a collection of trailers lacking a cohesive overarching tension arc. While it has plenty of atmosphere, it lacks buildup. Each scene feels like an elevator pitch that needs to make its point, evoke instant scares, and provide instant gratification. In Herzog’s version, for instance, the ship bringing Orlok/Dracula to Wisburg is shown in a mundane way, with the impending doom settling into the viewer’s mind through the preceding buildup. By contrast, Eggers shows us a wrecked ship with rats stranded on the harbor, immediately leading to the conclusion that the plague has arrived in Wisburg. It’s instant information without buildup. Herzog’s film draws us into a story with real people confronting supernatural evil. Eggers’ film, on the other hand, is a pressure cooker of instant hysteria where the connection between the human factor and the supernatural is insufficiently developed. In that pressure cooker, not only does the story fall apart, but so does the world in which it takes place. Herzog presents us with a world that feels scalable. We see Harker traveling through a landscape, arriving at an inn and castle, and when we follow him inside, we remain in the same world. Eggers’ world, however, breaks apart into isolated, enclosed spaces that have an artificial gloss on them. It can be considered the curse of many modern productions: even when computer-generated imagery is avoided—Eggers opted for practical effects like a real castle, real animals (wolves and rats!), and potato flakes as snow (a technique borrowed from a 1940s film)—post-production still makes the end result look like CGI. There, the tragedy of the filmmaker reverting to analogue sources and getting trapped in contemporary pixels manifests itself. In terms of visuals and direction, Nosferatu seems more inspired by Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula from 1992 than its predecessors from 1922 and 1979 (though it is by no means as bad as Coppola’s film, which looks beautiful but gives us actors who walk around like they’re failing an audition).  As Ellen Hutter, Lily-Rose Depp carries the weight of all the misfortune; she awakens Orlok from his centuries-long slumber. Eggers had her watch a series of films for inspiration for her role, including Ken Russell’s The Devils. And it shows. Depp portrays a woman gripped by melancholy—not the kind of pain that secretly feels good, but the 19th-century version: a state of deep depression. When her depressive episodes escalate into Exorcist-like hysteria, the supposed intensity becomes somewhat tiring. There’s room for beautiful and poignant reflections on Ellen's relationship with Orlok—on the allure of evil, on unfulfilled desires and vague fears seeking a dark outlet. However, the film doesn’t connect us to Ellen Hutter’s deeper psychology; it fails to explore her character’s layers. The film falls flat here.  Now Orlok is a flat character by nature. His motivations seem purely nihilistic. He comes across as someone obsessed with bureaucracy and formal agreements. He meticulously follows the process of buying a house, ensures that both Thomas and Ellen "consent" to her marriage to him, and has it confirmed in writing. This obsession with bureaucracy makes sense—it serves nobles and landowners exceptionally well. Deeds and contracts outlive people, and mastery of bureaucracy enhances power. However, Orlok’s betrayal of the pact he made with Knock reveals something crucial: Orlok doesn’t actually respect oaths or agreements. No two-way street here. For him, they are just means to subjugate others. His motivations are purely selfish—he’s driven by the desire to consume, spread chaos and disease, and feed on Ellen. He doesn’t even want to make Ellen immortal or his eternal companion. As a vampire, Orlok shows no interest in creating legions of followers. The rats spreading the plague are merely byproducts of his presence, not tools for a greater goal like conquering the world. His focus is entirely on consumption, particularly of Ellen—even if it leads to his own destruction.  Tod und Mädchen / Egon Schiele It’s only at the end that Eggers finds poetry within the horror, and it is there that the viewing experience gains depth. The ending is a stunning modern representation of the archetypal image of the Beauty and the Beast, Death and the Maiden. It’s grotesque and baroque—exactly what my gothic horror-loving heart desires. Without beauty, no horror and drama. Ellen sacrifices herself, and Orlok ultimately goes along with it. This makes their final, intimate moment a macabre duet—a necrophilic dance of death. It carries the chilling essence of Richard Strauss' (or Oscar Wilde's) Salome, a scene where horror is sustained by beauty, providing the film with a grotesquely beautiful and harrowing final chord.  Nosferatu is a film with flaws, that much is clear. With its adrenaline-fueled direction it’s like Solti conducting Der Ring, made to impress instantly but something that lacks flow--it doesn’t breathe. And for film, even the ones about undead bloodsuckers, the same rule applies as for music—it must breathe (like a Slayer song or a Bruckner symphony - you have this website for these kinds of comparisons, you're welcome). Nosferatu is a film that struggles to balance style and substance. It’s a film with stunning imagery and great moments (the scene where Orlok welcomes Hutter into his castle is wonderfully dark and intense) without becoming a great film. But know that this observation, along with all preceding comments, stems from a love for and engagement with the gothic horror genre. It’s wonderful that films like this are being made. And it’s wonderful that this gothic-romantic horror work of art frees us, if only for the duration of the film, from the everyday news, a world filled with real horrors and real monsters. - Wouter de Moor
In a world increasingly drawn to authoritarianism, the question of separating art from its context might feel urgent (again). In the last blog post of the year a reflection on some personal struggles and resulting findings. And so we come to a new year. Normally, I would immerse myself in a good Götterdämmerung to massage my mind. Music of an ending that harbours in it the promise of a new beginning. But this time, I find it difficult. The looming prospect of darkness in 2025 and beyond makes art with apocalyptic themes feel like something best put on hold. I simply can’t enjoy it right now. My current diet consists mostly of Haydn and (blackened) death metal—a kind of sonic aspirin to deal with the hangover of daily news and a sledgehammer to crush what lingers too long in my mind. Starting the day with Haydn has been a gift from a change in my social media behaviour. Like many others, I’ve migrated from Twitter to Bluesky (check out #A-Haydn-A-Day). That became inevitable when the owner of the former platform unabashedly presented himself as an advocate for global fascism. (Not that it was surprising, but there’s always a drop in the bucket, a moment of irreversibility. Ultimately, you do it for yourself, for your own mental well-being. Apparently, I’m not quite ready for Den Totalen Oligarchie yet.)  With fascism one comes, via music, quickly at Richard Wagner—the usual suspect among artists with a tainted reputation. I was made aware of Wagner’s association with unsavory history early in my journey of exploring his music. Years ago, during my ongoing quest for recordings of Wagner operas that demanded my attention, I met a very kind man in a record store. We talked about classical music, about Mozart and Solti. When Solti’s name came up, I mentioned something like, “He’s mostly known for Wagner, right?” (I was still in the homework phase, hadn’t yet bought a complete Ring cycle, and was debating the choice carefully—I wanted to avoid making the wrong decision. I still thought of Solti as a Ring that would render others unnecessary.) The man kindly but firmly stated that Wagner wasn’t welcome in his home. Part of his (Jewish) family had perished in World War II. Wagner was the composer of the Nazis; his music was the soundtrack of the Holocaust. I could only listen in silence, given the gravity of that association. He added that Richard Strauss was his limit; he was still willing to listen to Strauss. The man who became head of Germany's Reichskulturkammer in 1933 could count on his clemency. And he added, with a twinkle in his eye: “But I also really like Strauss.” In every listener, the egoist probably ultimately wins out over the moral judge. The way art can speak to us in a highly personal way, the enrichment one owes on an individual level to that art, often transcends the artist's wrong views, or wrong behaviour. (Moreover, with people who want to ban books and music, it often seems that they do so with art they didn't like anyway). Of course, there are limits—especially when current events force us to stare the moral depravity of an artist straight in the eye (see box). After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian-born pianist Evgeny Kissin gave an interview in which he mentioned a a fellow piano player, a friend, who supported Putin. “After decades living in the West and becoming a British citizen, Berezovsky now claims that Western media only say what the U.S. wants to hear and supports Putin. I haven’t spoken to him since and don’t intend to. After 1945, it was a huge mistake to allow musicians who supported the Nazis, such as pianist Walter Gieseking and conductor Karl Böhm, to perform again. That should no longer happen. Russian musicians closely aligned with Putin and refusing to condemn the war in Ukraine should never perform in the civilized world again. By supporting Putin, they have become accomplices to a mass murderer. Being a genius cannot excuse such actions. Only by excluding them can we deter others from doing the same under a future Russian dictatorship.” My relationship with Wagner is so ‘personalized’ that I can view him in layers, separating his music from the Nazi contamination that clung to him posthumously. His anti-Semitism and racism may attest to a morally deficient character, his music speaks differently. If it didn’t, we could let him rest on the trash heap of history. But that music! The quintet in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is one of the most beautiful, humane moments in all of Wagner’s operas. Each character in the quintet contributes unique depth, weaving individual emotions into a unified, resonant whole—a testament to Wagner’s mastery of polyphony and drama. Yet Die Meistersinger is perhaps the Wagner opera most tarnished by the Nazis. Whether Beckmesser was intended as a Jewish caricature is still debated, but for the Nazis, he certainly was. That’s why I’ve never felt completely comfortable listening to the 1943 Bayreuth performance under Furtwängler (which, incidentally, omits the quintet). Although I can evaluate the music on its merits and find Furtwängler an intriguing conductor, it doesn’t rise above the stench of its context. The mockery of Beckmesser on stage, the laughter in the audience—it’s more than just a bit unsettling. Among all performances of Die Meistersinger, I’d rather skip this one. In 1974, filmmaker Hans-Jürgen Syberberg interviewed Winifred Wagner. The interview remains a staggering document. As a fan of the music of her father-in-law (whom she never met), I’ve always felt a bit like a disaster tourist watching it. Winifred is clearly cultivated, well-versed in Goethe, but she was also a Nazi sympathizer. As an ‘excuse’ for that she claimed her affiliation with the Nazis was solely due to Adolf Hitler, whom she considered a good friend. Even 30 years after the war, she stated that if Hitler were to enter the room, she’d welcome him as a long-time close acquaintance. The combination of cultural sophistication and an apparent lack of a moral compass has always intrigued me. But in light of recent events, I’ve lost that curiosity. When the richest man in the world openly goes Full Metal Nazi, it becomes clear that a significant portion of humanity, even those presumed to possess functioning brains, is eager to return to it. To fascism, to the end of all that drivel about democracy and the rule of law (what has the rule of law ever done for me?). L'enfer c'est les autres. The U.S. elections and their outcomes mean my interest in Winifred has completely evaporated. Where once her opinions on Bayreuth productions could coexist with her approval of the Nazis banning Jewish artists (she didn’t like Mahler anyway, so she didn’t mind that the Nazis canceled him), current geopolitical developments now cause me to become completely disinterested in how she thinks about staging an opera. In a world that seems to have fallen into a kind of ‘Fascism is inevitable’ psychosis, the luxury of a past safely behind us has disappeared and with it my tolerance for pernicious views. Because what was then is now again. In today's world, yesterday's world looms large (also in the opera house, as became clear at a performance of Iphigénie en Tauride).  As for Winifred and her friendship with Hitler, it’s now clear to me that her story wasn’t exceptional. There’s nothing particularly fascinating about it anymore. She was simply not a very good person. It happens. I don’t need to engage with it anymore. The Wagner family of the 1920s and 30s will manage without me while the music of that old bastard remains. - Wouter de Moor
'Absolutely Elsewhere’ is a masterpiece on which BLOOD INCANTATION boldly go beyond to where they did go before, further perfecting their blend of death metal and prog rock with ambient flavours. It's a trip through time and space, where myth and meaning collide.  There is music that, upon first encounter, feels strange to you—and remains so for quite some time. It’s music you don’t immediately embrace, yet find fascinating enough to want to listen to again and again. I think of Alban Berg's Wozzeck, the first opera I saw live in a theater. I think of Messiaen, particularly his Catalogue d'oiseaux for piano, with its intricate evocations of the natural world, suggesting a musical landscape both elusive and enchanting, but also of someone like Milton Babbitt, whose (in)famous essay Who Cares if You Listen? seems to reflect a complete disregard for his audience, yet his music invites a continued curiosity. And then there is music that feels familiar, even from the first listen. Music in which all the elements you encounter evoke warm feelings of recognition and appreciation, yet whose mixture is so much more than the sum of its parts that it completely surprises you. The sonic world of Blood Incantation is such music—a music where the landscape unfolding before your ears feels familiar, offering moments of déjà vu, yet in which the contemporary mix of death metal, symphonic rock, prog rock, and ambient soundscapes transforms the landscape you know into something infinite. A wondrous experience. Blood Incantation has often enriched their death metal with symphonic and ambient tones, venturing far beyond the genre’s typical boundaries. They did sail into ambient waters on Hidden History of the Human Race (2019) where the death became spaciousness. And on their album Timewave Zero (2022), not even a single death grunt or guitar riff can be heard. It is an ambient work that even yours truly, self declared sceptic of everything too soundscapish, finds engaging. The long, expansive sonic fields on Timewave Zero draw the listener slowly into their depths, much like the sands of an endless desert that stretch toward the horizon, while never letting their focus wane. Blood Incantation draws its inspiration from a wide and eclectic array of sources, ranging—naturally—from metal to ambient and pop, with nods to acts as disparate as Klaus Schulze and, indeed, Tears for Fears (brrrr). Influences that remind us that even sources which might not immediately capture the imagination (to put it mildly) can achieve profound value when they lend themselves to the creation of something singular. For their latest endeavor, Absolutely Elsewhere, the band from Denver, Colorado collaborated with notable musicians like Thorsten Quaeschning of Tangerine Dream and Hällas keyboardist Nicklas Malmqvist, who contributed rich piano, synth, and mellotron soundscapes. Additionally, Malte Gericke from Sijjin and Necros Christos provided death growls and German spoken-word vocals. The result hits the ball out of the park, straight into space. Here, the blasts of death dwell into ethereal realms with staggering musical substance. This collaboration has yielded a work that reaches a peculiar depth, with an unique sense of atmosphere. It’s as though Blood Incantation had merely uncovered another facet of a musical vision long latent within them. The interplay between gradual development and abrupt shifts becomes a central characteristic that here is shaped into perfection. Just as the listener becomes acclimated to this cosmic drift, there is a rupture. For instance, the transition between The Message (Tablet II) and The Message (Tablet III) is one of those serious eargasmic moments. With its nod to the melancholy of Pink Floyd (it even has a literally quote from Wish You Were Here), the music at the end of The Message (Tablet II) suddenly shifts—as the death metal from Tablet III crashes in, brutal and relentless. It is a moment akin to the mythic and divine forces embark in a cosmic cataclysm. One moment you are floating in the void; the next, the stars themselves are collapsing into a black hole.  Parsifal (Odilon Redon, 1891) Coming from another era is that notion of an opera, a Bühnenweihfestspiel, where time itself seems stretched into a spatial experience, where time becomes space. In Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, the delicate balance between gradualism and upheaval reveils something more about the ways music can open our ears and mind. The opera unfolds slowly, hypnotically, its music stretching out in endless melody. The first act alone feels like a pilgrimage, a slow awakening into the mysterious landscape of time and grace. But in the measured unfolding of these solemn sounds, Wagner inserts a moment of revelation, where the carefully cultivated atmosphere is pierced by a transformative, shocking, event. The Grail is revealed. Time collapses, and what was eternal becomes immediate, pressing, like a divine force breaking through the mundane. It is precisely this duality in Parsifal that fascinated the writer Philip K. Dick. In his novel Valis, Dick explores Wagner’s opera not merely as a religious or philosophical meditation but as a work that pierces the fabric of reality itself, a story where the gradual and the sudden coexist in an almost schizophrenic tension. Dick, whose own life was defined by sudden, revelatory experiences, saw in Parsifal something of his own search for truth—his search for a reality beyond the one we perceive. The story of Parsifal, with its gradual journey toward enlightenment and its sudden, transcendent moments of grace, mirrored Dick’s own experiences with what he called "anamnesis"—the sudden recovery of lost, hidden knowledge, the abrupt realization that the world is not what it seems.  In Valis, Dick’s protagonist, Horselover Fat, grapples with the shocking revelation that reality is not linear, not gradual, but layered with hidden dimensions that can break through at any moment. This breakthrough, for Dick, was akin to Wagner’s use of time in Parsifal. In the opera, time is stretched, elongated, as though Wagner himself sought to escape the bounds of ordinary temporality. But then, in key moments, time shatters. The divine irrupts into the mundane. Dick saw in this the perfect metaphor for his own visionary experiences: the slow, gradual unfolding of reality suddenly ruptured by moments of transcendent truth, or what he referred to as "the divine invasion." Parsifal’s quest was not merely for the Grail but for the true nature of reality, for that hidden layer beneath the surface of things where time and space are malleable, and where truth comes crashing through like a bolt of lightning.  Anamnesis (Image generated by Dall-E) Both Parsifal and Dick's novel act as bridges between the enchantment of mythical lands in childhood and adults' search for meaning. The music of Blood Incantation and the images it evokes are like a tribute to those childhood fantasies of pyramids in mythical lands in which wonder is more important than factual history. Listening to it, it’s like traveling back to a mental temple built of all my old ideas, a salute to the mysteries I once concocted for myself. It draws me into visions of vast and shadowed halls, guarded by silent, timeless statues, and I feel the thrill of a child’s limitless imagination. It is a music, an art, that represents not just structured sound and silence but something from which the value cannot be overstated: providing a refuge from the untamed mysteries of the mind and its imagination. - Wouter de Moor
Rafael R. Villalobos' interpretation of Gluck's “Iphigénie enTauride” unfolds against the haunting remains of the bombed-out theatre of Mariupol in Ukraine. There, the audience is immersed in a grim scene where ancient myths meet contemporary horror. This production, created by Villalobos in 2022, is a co-production between Opera Ballet Vlaanderen and Montpellier, where the work premiered in 2023. This season it has its premier in Belgium.  © Annemie Augustijns / Opera Ballet Vlaanderen Director Rafael R. Villalobos presents Iphigénie en Tauride against the devastated backdrop of the theater in Mariupol, which was destroyed by bombings during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This is the setting where ancient myths intertwine with the harsh realities of our time. Once a beacon of culture and civilization, the theater now stands as a symbol of wartime destruction, a grave for hundreds of civilians who lost their lives there due to Russian aggression (the word "Children," chalked into the ground at the main entrance in Russian, was mainly an incitement to throw another bomb on it for the invaders). The production begins with a piece of “traditional” theater by Euripides. Agamemnon attempts to console his wife, Clytemnestra, reminding her that their daughter, Iphigenia, now dwells among the gods. Yet Clytemnestra is inconsolable—furious and vengeful, as will become evident. This is the final scene from Iphigénie en Aulide. The opera cast looks on, they are the audience of a performance whose sequel, Iphigénie en Tauride, they themselves will perform. In this meta-theatrical setting, the orchestral storm Gluck evokes in the overture is interrupted by a bombardment, we see smoke and the roof collapses. Survivors seek refuge. Iphigénie appeals to the gods for help against the avenging lightning, to spare the innocent and stop the violence. These are lyrics that fit well with an opening that is set against the backdrop of war crimes. Placing ancient operatic repertoire in the modern era often has an alienating effect, with certainly not always satisfying results but here, coupled with a present whose future we do not yet know, it deprives us of the comfort of hindsight. And that gives Gluck's 18th-century opera a heartbreaking and uncomfortable immediacy.  © Annemie Augustijns / Opera Ballet Vlaanderen The opera's story, rooted in the aftermath of the Trojan War, is itself a tale of survival and suffering. Iphigénie, long thought to be dead, is rescued from the sacrificial block by the goddess Diana and now finds herself stranded in Tauride (located in the Crimea, the linkage of war-then with war-now is not far-fetched) where she serves as a priestess. King Thoas, who has been told by an oracle that it is a foreigner who will endanger his life, has decreed that all foreigners who set foot on Tauride should be executed. And it is Iphigénie who is entrusted with that task. Fate brings her brother, Orestes, to these shores, though neither recognises the other at first. The drama that unfolds between them -confusion, grief and eventual reunion- culminates in the intervention of, again, the goddess Diana who will eventually grant them both safety and a return to Greece. The ancient story of Iphigénie, who narrowly escapes death and to find herself in exile in a world of endless violence, feels terrifyingly contemporary. Here the myth becomes a mirror for a world still in a state of conflict. At the beginning of the third act, just after the interval, there is another piece of theatre (this time to Sophocles' text) in which Clytemnestra lashes out against Elektra and explains why she killed her husband, Agememnon (Richard Strauss would later go all out on the house of Atreus in his own Screaming for vengeance-opera Elektra). The idea behind those inserted bits of stage play is better than the execution. The acting is stiff and awkward, the stage acting contrasting in a blunt way with the sophistication of the opera - that sublime interplay of text, song and music.  © Annemie Augustijns / Opera Ballet Vlaanderen Iphigénie en Tauride is Gluck's last so-called ‘reform opera’. In it, he says farewell to the Da-Capo-Aria, sacrifices (baroque) form to dramatic progress, and provides a mature accompaniment of the recitatives by the orchestra. In these ways, he makes the dividing line between aria and recitative more diffuse (Wagner would willingly be inspired by it). With his reforms, Gluck thus presents himself as the best of both worlds: the delicacy and melodiousness of 18th-century opera with the pulsating progress of a through-composed 19th-century musical drama. In Michèle Losier 's performance as Iphigénie, we see and hear a mezzo-soprano who embodies drama and artistry in a role often sung by a soprano. With emotional power and exquisite technical subtlety, she navigates the turbulent waters of her character's inner world. In doing so, she is both musically astute and heartbreakingly sensitive. Reinoud of Mechelen is a Pyladus of ardent, passionate loyalty. A friend -a lover- who is willing to sacrifice his life for Orestes, his cousin. His tenor is warm and bright, conveying the fervour of his character with verve. Kartal Karagedik is Orestes, a brave and raw character whose baritone is richly and aptly matched to Van Mechelen's lyric tenor. Their singing together is the voicing of a deep entanglement, as harmonious as it is tragic and fateful. Lucy Gibbs appears briefly as Diana, yet leaves a lasting impression. Her portrayal of the goddess emerges with ethereal beauty and deliberate authority, supported by a voice that resounds like an unyielding celestial decree. In his portrayal of Thoas, Wolfgang Stefan Schwaiger brings to life a man whose gestures and vocal expressions exude a ruthless menace. In him, the disturbances of war and lust for power find an impressive theatrical representation. He violates women, an illustration of a king's brutality that echoes an extremely bleak, harsh reality (Tens of thousands women and children are reported to have been victims of (sexual) violence since the Russian invasion of Ukraine). As Thoas, Schwaiger is a sinister stage personality (that's a recommendation) who embodies the devastating power of human cruelty.  © Annemie Augustijns / Opera Ballet Vlaanderen The choir conducted by Jori Klomp is of an almost unearthly beauty. Witnessing tragic fate, the choir carries a timeless wisdom. Its words - poetic, rhythmic, often solemn - express what individuals cannot: the universal and eternal suffering of humanity, our shared fears, doubts, and questions. Very beautiful is the resurrection of the Furiae who throw themselves at Orestes like tormentors, hauntingly imposing themselves on his conscience (after all, he killed his mother). The orchestra led by Benjamin Bayl plays with a fiery intensity that feels both dramatic and nuanced, in which each musical phrase is carefully constructed as a story in itself. The strength and depth of the orchestral sound evokes emotions ranging from passion to stillness, while remaining surprisingly transparent throughout. Every detail, from the velvety strings to the fiery brass, is heard crystal clear, like a web of sounds in which everything falls harmoniously into place. When the final notes of the opera die away in the silence of the ruined theatre, we are left, not with the catharsis of a myth, but with the uneasy realisation that, unlike Iphigénie and Orestes, we cannot count on gods to come to our rescue. It is impossible to watch this production, the world of Tauride set in a theatre violated by war, without reflecting on the state of the world and the fragility of the European project - the dream of a continent united by shared values of peace, democracy and human rights. The more a drama we witness in a theatre is palpable, the better, overall, the theatre experience. I spoke to a few people from Mariupol who attended the premiere. From them, I wanted to know whether a theatrical representation of a drama so close to home, a drama that is still ongoing, can still be experienced as theatre, whether there is anything left to ‘enjoy’. More important than any objections from the (sensitive) audience was the urgency and importance that the story was told and re-told. And that theatre, with the resources at its disposal, had to be used above all to tell (also) stories that were not mere entertainment.  © Annemie Augustijns / Opera Ballet Vlaanderen At that reception afterwards, I stood among people from different parts of Europe; besides Belgians and Dutch, people from Italy, France, Poland and Ukraine. People from different backgrounds, with shared interests, coming from different places. It was a look at the present with a promise of a future in which we live together peacefully, want to solve problems and not use them as an excuse to play scapegoat politics. I could hardly shake off the feeling that we might later look back on this time as ‘The World of Yesterday’. Stefan Zweig's 1942 requiem for a Europe that had been crushed by turbo-nationalism and fascism. It was like looking back from the past to the present in which the cold reality of Russian imperialism and the imminent rise of fascism (on the eve of the US presidential election!), was too pregnant to be considered comfortable. Perhaps therein lay the real drama of the evening. That this poignant production of Iphigénie en Tauride from Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck, the man who loved to look across borders, who thought the national differences between Italian, French and German opera were just nonsense, was a catalyst for the realisation that the Europe looked to from Ukraine (but also from Georgia) as a promise of freedom may soon no longer exist. It is a final note in which melancholic wistfulness extends like a silent, compelling recommendation to experience this opera in the theatre. For that is preferably the place to enjoy art, and it is desirable, necessary even perhaps, that there the stories that most deeply confront us with our own fragility and the raw reality of things also find their voice. And you get beautiful music to go with it. Iphigénie en Tauride, Christoph Willibald von Gluck / Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Antwerp, 25 October 2024 (Belgian premiere) Benjamin Bayl Conductor Symfonisch Orkest Opera Ballet Vlaanderen Rafael R. Villalobos Director, Costume Designer Jori Klomp Conductor choir Koor Opera Vlaanderen Michèle Losier Iphigénie Kartal Karagedik Oreste Reinoud van Mechelen Pyladus Wolfgang Stefan Schwaiger Thoas, King of Scythia Lucy Gibbs Diana Hugo Kampschreur Scythian Dagmara Dobrowolska First priestess Bea Desmet Second priestess - Wouter de Moor
This year, we celebrate Anton Bruckner's 200th birthday. Composer of massive, timeless and time-consuming symphonies. Ever since I was introduced to Bruckner's music (via a recording of the 7th symphony, in a performance by the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Karl Böhm), Bruckner's music has never failed to move me. Whereas Bruckner was initially still a kind of symphonic Richard Wagner to me, his music has since increased my awareness of him and I grant him, unconditionally, his well-deserved place in the Pantheon of Greats on his own merits. I kept and keep discovering new layers, new meaning, in the symphonies - so often referred to as cathedrals of sound - of dear Anton.  But before we embark upon our journey through the music of the composer and organist from Ansfelden, we pause briefly and lend an ear to the brooding, dark sounds of heavy metal. Up the Irony! There is a peculiar irony in the modern mind's pursuit of comfort through what is, ostensibly, discomforting music. The scream that rends the air, the violent cacophony of guitars and drums, the suffocating symphonic blackness of gothic metal – these elements, one would assume, are designed to unsettle, to disturb the soul, to plunge it into an abyss of existential terror. And yet, it is precisely here, amidst the frenetic intensity of symphonic deathcore or the baroque theatrics of gothic metal, that we find a curious solace, a strange and disturbing sense of comfort. For all the ostensible chaos and violence, the listener is, in fact, ensconced in a realm of safety, shielded from true peril by the very structure of the music itself. The roaring abyss, it seems, is neatly framed. I spent some time with Cradle of Filth's latest studio album, Existence is Futile, a hallucinatory metal masterpiece where ideas and execution find each other in stunning, edifying ways. Darkness be praised. But I noticed, with all the carefully curated darkness and immaculate brutality, that everything remains in place, that the form and content are kept neatly delineated. There is talk of death, there are invocations of the void, thrilling in their artifice, but ultimately rendered as mere entertainment. There is no terror here that can linger in the heart, no shadow that truly threatens to consume the soul. The violence is contained, the darkness tempered by its own predictability. In this respect, such music – for all its intensity – is as comforting as any pastoral symphony (ha!), offering not a glimpse into the void, but a carefully controlled masquerade of dread. If we really want to hear something grand that alienates and disconcerts us, we have to turn to something else, to the modern, avant-garde composers of the 19th and 20th centuries for example. To music that questions form as well as content. Enter: Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) My affinity for metal, without question, rendered Bruckner's music, much like Wagner's, more accessible. In Bruckner, as in metal, I discovered a profound resonance between grand, sweeping gestures and the intimate stirrings of the soul—a connection imbued with a depth of feeling not unfamiliar to those who journey through life with a certain melancholy and reflective mind. And it was, in turn, through listening to heavy metal—that "other music" to which this very website owes its name—that the surprising and innovative nature of Bruckner’s work became so vividly clear to me. It is not the loudness or the violence of music that disconcerts us most. It is when it dares to question the very nature of sound, when it peels back the thin veneer of order to reveal the chaos beneath, that we are truly alienated. Especially after listening to a few hours of metal, the music of Anton Bruckner can sound unusually unsettling and nervous. Like in metal, Bruckner comes with grandness and evocative power but here the music trembles on the precipice of revelation, unable to find comfort in its own beauty. Beautiful things, indeed, happen within his symphonies, but they are not an end in themselves. There is a sense, as one listens, of something deeper at work – something that cannot be safely contained within the formal bounds of composition. The music is seeking, striving towards a form that, in turn, must define its content, and yet there remains an uncertainty, a nervousness, as if the composer himself is unsure of the end towards which he gropes. Anton Bruckner, often associated with the grandiose and spiritual symphonic traditions of the 19th century, is perhaps paradoxically one of the most forward-thinking composers of his era. While his symphonies may evoke the majesty of classical forms, they also possess qualities that align him with modernist and avant-garde composers who would come decades later. His music, characterized by unconventional structures, complex harmonic language, and a defiance of traditional compositional norms, challenges the boundaries between tradition and innovation. Bruckner's Radical Use of Form At first glance, Bruckner’s symphonies seem to adhere to the grand Austro-Germanic tradition established by Beethoven with expansive symphonic structures and a reverence for spiritual expression. However, beneath the surface, Bruckner’s approach to musical form was far more radical than his predecessors or contemporaries. Unlike Brahms, who worked meticulously within the constraints of classical forms, Bruckner took an entirely different approach. His symphonies are vast, architectural works, often spanning over an hour, but they do not conform to traditional expectations of symphonic development. Bruckner’s music builds through massive, almost static blocks of sound, interspersed with long periods of quiet contemplation, creating an architecture that feels suspended in time. As if time becomes space. The scale and pacing of these blocks reject the conventional dynamic flow and linear progression expected in symphonic movements. His use of repetition and cyclical patterns, rather than continuous development, draws the listener into a more meditative and abstract sound world. This technique foreshadows the “block” structures of 20th-century composers like Igor Stravinsky and György Ligeti, who similarly fragmented and reorganized the linearity of music. In Bruckner, there is a essential unease – a tension that arises not from the mere imitation of achieving an effect, be it dark, solemn or grandiose, but from the composer’s very struggle to grasp at something ineffable. The music does not simply seek to please or to titillate; it seeks to offer an experience that may, in some shadowy, uncertain way, illuminate the mysteries of life and perhaps even that which lies beyond. The Adagios of his last three symphonies are expanses of magnificent, sublime vastness. Spaces in which time stands still and expands. Yet, as with the works of his great predecessor, Richard Wagner, the staggering beauty of Bruckner's music does not reveal itself through conventional harmony or easily discerned melodies. Instead, it is a strange, elusive beauty, distinguished by an uncanny abrasion—a wearing away of familiar forms—against a backdrop of enigmatic chord progressions. His music quivers on the edge of dissolution, as if the composer himself is lost in the very darkness or eternity he seeks to comprehend. The nervousness of his symphonies is the nervousness of a man who peers into the void and does not know what he will find there.  Gothic imagery. The tomb of Anton Bruckner in St. Florian. In a crypt where the symphonist lies beneath his organ and opposite a wall of skulls. The Greatness of Music Thus, we return to the notion of music as a conduit to something greater – something that transcends the mere performance of discomfort and instead confronts the listener with the raw, unmediated essence of existence. In metal, form and content are safely entwined but in Bruckner there is no such safety. Against the grandeur and triumph of the hard-rocking finale of the 8th symphony stands for example the finale of the 5th symphony in which the music seems to strain against its own form. Searching for a way to express that which cannot be contained, and in doing so, it forces us to confront the most essential questions of our lives. What are we? Where are we going? What, if anything, lies beyond the darkness that awaits us all? In this light, the true power of music lies not in its ability to entertain or to comfort, but in its capacity to unsettle, to disrupt our complacency, and to force us to grapple with the mystery of existence itself. For those willing enough to listen, Bruckner’s monumental symphonies offer not only the comfort of unadultered beauty in well-worn forms, but also the disquieting promise of something far more profound – an experience that, like life itself, refuses to be safely contained. - Wouter de Moor
The Mahler Academy Orchestra, conducted by Philipp von Steinaecker, gave a special performance of Mahler's 5th Symphony at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. With instruments from Mahler's time they brought the composer’s sound world to life, where tradition and innovation came together in an immersive performance.  Photo: Marco Caselli Nirmal/Ferrara Musica Mahler on period instruments—how does that sound? The Mahler Academy Orchestra, conducted by Philipp von Steinaecker, gave us the opportunity to explore this question. Amsterdam is well-acquainted with Mahler and while debates occasionally arise here about whether his extensive presence in the concerthalls keeps new composers away from their well-needed time of exposure, his symphonies remain a singular phenomenon in the annals of classical music. On September 12th at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Austrian maestro once again ensnared a fresh audience in his spectral allure, hinting at his timeless charm. (At least the average age of the audience, which was a lot lower than that of Der Fliegende Holländer almost a week earlier in this hall, suggested something like that.) The inexorable pull of the past continues to mesmerize us, and performances on period instruments offer a striking glimpse into this mystic voyage. Far more profound than a mere visit to the museum, the quest to reawaken a symphony as it might have sounded a century and two decades ago seeks to dispel the cobwebs spun by an age-old musical tradition. Does it unlock our senses anew? Do we rediscover a composition that we have delved into through innumerable versions and interpretations? Philipp von Steinaecker was once a cellist and assistant conductor to the illustrious Claudio Abbado, who founded the Mahler Academy in Bolzano in 1999. Here, youthful musicians from the far reaches of Europe immerse themselves in chamber music and historical Viennese instruments. This endeavor culminated in the Originalklang Project, where students and seasoned musicians from top European orchestras strive to capture the sound that Mahler himself might have envisioned. What stands out about the historical instruments is their transparent sound. Additionally, the orchestral balance is different (and perhaps better); modern brass instruments are much louder than their predecessors that have a greater emphasis on color rather than volume.  Bust of Gustav Mahler in the Concertgebouw Along with the sound of period instruments, Von Steinaecker gave us an interpretation that referred to Willem Mengelberg, the founding father of the Mahler tradition in the Netherlands. Rich in portamento in the strings and a rather free, almost capricious use of rubato. The efficacy of this approach was variable. At times, the deliberate delays intended to heighten tension seemed burdensome. The Adagietto unfurled with an intense, fiery fragility that I found profoundly moving, though my partner deemed it excessively languorous. The nature of perceived slowness is intrinsically subjective. The appropriateness of tempi is a matter of context. Von Steinaecker allowed the orchestra to blaze with fervor and the fin-de-siècle ambiance resounded with formidable power and grandeur, yet in evoking tension through contrast—a domain where Mengelberg reigned supreme—Von Steinaecker fell short of the Dutch maestro. The strings, warm and resonant, performed beautifully as the orchestra's beating heart. They excelled in expressive pizzicato, almost as if dancing a Sirtaki, and were glowing pillars of support for the brass and woodwinds that were revealing a delicate, almost trembling vulnerability. With the period instruments, it was as if you could hear the building blocks of Mahler's 5th Symphony finding their place. The result was refreshing and by times perspective-altering (for instance in the 3rd movement where the horn was given a solo spot, as if in a concerto). Though as a whole, it was not a drastically daring departure from what might be expected. Next year, on the occasion of the Mahler Festival in Amsterdam, which was previously cancelled due to Covid, orchestra and conductor (they previously recorded Mahler's 9th using period instruments) will return for a revival of the 5th.  Before the intermission, Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto served as a warm-up, with the excellent soloist Leif Ove Andsnes returning for a well-received encore. While Andsnes's pianistic skills were unquestionable, I couldn't shake the feeling, as often with Rachmaninoff, that his music is most compelling when performed by Rachmaninoff himself. When the virtuoso aspect of his music does not unfold too explicitly before our ears and eyes but remains more hidden, like a potential that can be unlocked. In compositions that resonate deeply, the notes appear where you don't expect them but where you definitely want them. With Rachmaninoff, the notes often fall where you expect, which can make them seem somewhat redundant. The imposing sequences can become complacent, with the moments of excitement and transcendence proving too infrequent to deliver a wholly satisfying listening experience. But this, I concede, may be a solitary perspective given the fervent reception of the audience (my partner was ecstatic). Mahler & Rachmaninoff, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, 12 September 2024 Mahler Academy Orchestra Philipp von Steinaecker (conductor) Leif Ove Andsnes (piano) Rachmaninoff - Piano concerto nr. 3 in d, op. 30 Mahler - Symphonie nr. 5 in cis - Wouter de Moor
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