Agenda

Phaedra in flames is a modern adaptation of the classic love drama Phaedra. In this new version by Nino Haratischwili (The Eighth Life), she explores how, as a woman in a man’s world, you can fight for your own freedom. Tamar van den Dop stars as Phaedra and Yela de Koning as her lover Persea, with live music by the New European Ensemble.

The power of love

Phaedra, Queen of Athens, is trapped in an unhappy marriage to her husband, Theseus. Everything changes when she meets her future daughter-in-law, Persea. This young woman shakes up everything and everyone around her, recklessly challenging existing power structures. Phaedra becomes captivated by Persea’s fierce energy. A secret, passionate relationship develops — with disastrous consequences.

Raw, visual and Poetic

Director Ola Mafaalani made her name with raw, visual, and poetic productions such as Othello, Wings of Desire, and Fellini. Until 2016, she led the Noord Nederlands Toneel. Since then, she has created her major productions mainly for opera and abroad (including Berlin and Riga). For the first time since the theater hit Borgen (2016), she now returns to the main stage. Composer Krists Auznieks has written new music, performed live by four musicians from the New European Ensemble. Phaedra in Flames is a prodcution of Het Nationale Theater, in coproduction with NEuE.

Meriç Artaç is composing a brand-new Bosch Requiem, commissioned by November Music for NEuE and Capella Amsterdam. It can be heard on 7 November at Theater aan de Parade in Den Bosch and during Opera Forward 2026.

The Holland Festival presents the world premiere of Otemba – Daring Women, the music theatre production by composer Misato Mochizuki, librettist Janine Brogt, and director Jan van den Berg, starring soloists Ryoko Aoki and Bernadeta Astari. The piece is based on the painting Portrait of Pieter Cnoll, Cornelia van Nijenrode, their daughters and two enslaved servants (Batavia, 1665) by Jacob Coeman, which hangs in the Rijksmuseum. Otemba – Daring Women sheds light on the colonial history of the Netherlands as well as the international character of the city of Amsterdam, presenting multiple, sometimes divergent perspectives from both the characters and the international creators. Mochizuki (Tokyo, 1969) weaves into her music elements from various Japanese and Western musical traditions.

‘Otemba’ is not only the title of the production but also one of more than 160 words that Japanese has borrowed from Dutch. It means ‘untamable’ and is specifically used to describe independent (rebellious) girls and women who refuse to submit and go their own way.

Otemba – Daring Women is inspired by the remarkable life story of the woman depicted in the painting: Cornelia van Nijenroode. She was the daughter of the Japanese woman Surishira and Cornelis van Nijenroode, a Dutch merchant in Hirado, the first Dutch East India Company trading post in Japan. At the age of 23, Cornelia married Pieter Cnoll, a wealthy senior merchant from Batavia. Four years after Pieter Cnoll’s death, Cornelia remarried — this time to Joan Bitter, a disastrous decision, as Bitter was primarily interested in Cornelia’s fortune. The marriage quickly and irreparably deteriorated. In an extraordinary move for the time, Cornelia filed for divorce. She pursued her case all the way to the Supreme Court, in the first Dutch divorce case in which a woman claimed legal authority over her own assets.

Remarkably, the painting also depicts the future Indonesian freedom fighter Untung Surapati. Since 1975 — thirty years after the proclamation of the Republic of Indonesia — the Republic has honoured him as a national hero.

In Otemba – Daring Women, Cornelia van Nijenroode steps out of her frame and out of her own era, entering the 21st century and another continent. There she meets Kirana Diah, the Indonesian restorer working on the painting. Initially, Kirana is primarily interested in the work because of Untung Surapati. But then Cornelia challenges her to a nocturnal conversation about female untamability, their views of themselves and each other, decolonisation, and self-determination. How do you look at each other’s cultural reality across the centuries? It becomes a magical moment in the restoration process — a one-time, night-time encounter that transcends the boundaries of time and space; between painting and reality, between past and present, between East and West.

The meeting sparks a confrontation between the characters and their life stories, which differ radically yet also reveal surprising similarities. A scanning robot is also present, an artificial intelligence intended to be a neutral data analyst, yet it, too, turns out to have a voice of its own.

The production premiered during the 78th Holland Festival on 19 June 2025 at the Muziekgebouw and will go on a national tour at a later stage.

With his iconic composition 4’33”, John Cage invited listeners in 1952 to listen attentively to their surroundings and to the subtle sounds of their own heartbeat and breathing. Since then, new music has continuously challenged us to hear the world in new ways. Swiss composer Jürg Frey creates works that explore the boundaries of the audible. His compositions make use of sparse sonic material and silences, turning silence itself into the subject of the music. The result is an invitation to reflect and to experience sound in a renewed way.

Programme:

John Cage – Seven
John Cage – In a Landscape
John Cage – 4’33”
Jürg Frey – world premiere (commissioned by NEuE)

Watch the New European Ensemble at work with composer Jürg Frey here:

In Les Noces verbeelden ‘gechoreografeerde scènes met muziek en stemmen’, in vier tableaus, het Russische volkshuwelijksritueel. Sober, gestileerd en messcherp. Stravinsky’s muziek combineert ritmische brutaliteit met een bezwerende kracht en roept zowel de tijdloosheid als de onverbiddelijkheid van dat ritueel op.

Aanvullende stukken, zoals de speelse Circus Polka en het ritmische stuk Piano-Rag-Music, benadrukken Stravinsky’s meesterlijke gebruik van ritme en timbre. Het programma bevat ook werken voor pianola en harmonium, die niet alleen Stravinsky’s experimenteerdrang tonen, maar ook de uiteenlopende klankkleuren die zijn werk zo uniek maken.

How do you see the world without looking?
How does silence sound when it begins to speak?

In this new programme from the Mavericks series, the New European Ensemble brings together three remarkable voices — each exploring perception, imagination, and inner freedom in their own way.

Kurdish-Dutch composer Hawar Tawfiq has written a new work about blindness — not as a limitation, but as an invitation to listen more deeply. His music moves between sound and silence, between what is heard and what can only be sensed.

Clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh, the featured artist in this programme, is a boundary-defying musical personality. Known for his collaborations with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble and orchestras around the world, he merges improvisation and composition into an intense, deeply personal musical language — virtuosic yet heartfelt, always driven by communication and human expression.

The poetry collections curated by Ahmed Aboutaleb form the reflective counterpart of the evening. In his own poems and translations, he explores themes of identity, responsibility, and human dignity. His language is clear and direct, yet layered and contemplative. In this context, his poetry invites new ways of seeing and understanding — precisely what Seeing Without Seeing is about.

Mavericks is the New European Ensemble’s platform for visionary voices that question conventions and place the act of listening at the centre. Seeing Without Seeing invites the audience to hear differently, to feel differently — beyond borders, beyond sight, in the space where imagination begins.

A contemporary requiem full of emotion and mystery

The requiem originated in the church as a sung mass for the dead. Over time, it evolved into a music genre in its own right. Each year, the November Music Festival in Den Bosch invites a contemporary composer to write a new work inspired by this musical tradition: the Bosch Requiem. To mark the tenth anniversary of the Opera Forward Festival (OFF), the two festivals have joined forces to commission Meriç Artaç. The work will have its world premiere in concert form—without elaborate sets, costumes or staging—at November Music, before being presented as a music theatre production at OFF.

Poetic and multi-layered

Meriç Artaç has a deep passion for multidisciplinary work and has composed several operas and music theatre pieces, including Madam Koo and The Arrival of Mr. Z.  For Requiem for Mariza, she set to music a libretto by Dutch writer Sarah Sluimer, who is known for her sharp wit and her ability to intertwine the personal and the political in richly imaginative texts. The stage direction is by Silvia Costa, who has rapidly built an impressive career in the international opera world. Her ability to create poetic and multi-layered productions has made her a highly sought-after director. The New European Ensemble is conducted by Sora Elisabeth Lee, who is on the brink of an international breakthrough as a conductor and is making her debut at Dutch National Opera with Requiem for Mariza.

How does someone on the spectrum experience the world? This isn’t a theoretical question – it’s an experience. In his new work, composer Bryan Seegers takes you into his sensory and emotional world within the autism spectrum. No filter, no compromises – raw, direct, and intense.

This piece goes beyond music alone. Spoken texts by neurodiverse Dutch individuals become part of the composition – their voices, their reality.

Do you truly want to understand what neurodiversity means? Before the concert, there will be a talk that will change the way you see perception and creativity – forever.

Are you ready to embark on this musical and mental journey?