In their preparations for this new season, Sophie de Lint and her team have been striving to find the right balance between new operas that confront burning societal issues and new productions of the core repertoire – from Handel to Wagner – staged by some of the most sought-after directors of today. The result is a carefully curated programme that reflects our continuous drive to be a true house of the 21st century.
The launch of the new opera season is an important moment that Sophie de Lint looks forward to every year: “It is when my colleagues and I can finally share our new projects with the public. The programme is developed and defined several seasons in advance and the announcement of the new season provides an occasion to show the cultural world, both in the Netherlands and internationally, what we’re working on right now.”
And what is Dutch National Opera working on?
“We’re constantly on the lookout for artists who have a message for our times: stories from the past that resonate today and topical themes that touch us, move us and make us aware of what is going on in our society. Opera helps us experience past and present worlds and at the same time raises questions that let us reflect on the future.
Take our season’s opener, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, by the composer Kurt Weill and librettist Bertolt Brecht. That opera was revolutionary when it premiered in 1930. It is a satire about people who want to build a new world in which anything goes, but it all goes horribly wrong. Financial gain takes precedence over all else and money is the only moral value left. Today, nearly a hundred years later, Weill and Brecht’s message is as powerful as ever. Weill also pushed the boundaries of the language of opera, blending jazz and light music influences with the idiom of classical opera. That ‘crossing borders’ approach continues to be a fruitful source of inspiration and a focal point in our programming. This new production, directed by Ivo van Hove – one of the world’s leading theatre and opera directors – sets the tone for the whole season.”
‘We have created a season that moves from darkness to light and ends with a feeling of hope’
A number of the operas in the new season tackle the question of “human responsibility”. What is behind this choice?
“Indeed, the question of responsibility has become a highly relevant subject in contemporary society, especially because we’re not living in the most uplifting of times. Take the climate problem, geopolitical conflicts, the affordability of energy and health issues for instance. People feel insecure, anxious and lost. What can we do about it? What should we do? Where does our own responsibility start and end? In the past, you could turn up the heating without feeling guilty, but now that too raises all kinds of questions.
Opera can’t give us direct answers to all these questions but it can engage us on an emotional, intellectual and sensory level, like no other artform can. Opera can give us hope, make us sensitive and critical, and help us find our moral compass – something we need now more than ever.”
Is this also the case with The Shell Trial?
“The Shell Trial focuses on the debate about responsibility in the climate crisis. In the opera, which is based on the prize-winning play De zaak Shell, a collective of artists give voice to the various parties involved in the case, sharing their personal perspectives on the crisis. In the process of creating this production, we are also deliberately searching for sustainable solutions: we want to make The Shell Trial as climate-aware as possible. We have entrusted one of the most promising composers from the new generation with this opera: American Ellen Reid, who recently won the Pulitzer Prize for her opera p r i s m. Her distinctive musical language is perfectly suited for this adaptation of a play into an opera giving this new production its own character.”
Is it true that a lot of the operas this season revolve around court cases?
“Yes, that’s an interesting point. Several of the operas this season, from both the classical and contemporary repertoire, have this theme at their heart. Take the court scene in Lohengrin for example, the trials in Die Zauberflöte or the intrigue surrounding Roberto Devereux. Similarly, Innocence revolves around a school shooting in Finland with the victims and perpetrators processing the event through their memories. The Finnish librettist, Sofi Oksanen, poses a serious question for our collective conscience: who is truly free of guilt, even when we know who committed the crime? Taking this question as the starting point, composer Kaija Saariaho has written one of her most moving scores to date. When I saw the production at its premiere in Aix- en-Provence, I was totally blown away.”
