The first page of the brochure with the new season Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (OBV) is titled: Eye to Eye. The last page shows a sharply defined eye in a cutout (image Olgaç Bozalp). What is inside the brochure is equally surprising and striking. OBV is resolutely committing to renewal and rejuvenation. What especially strikes the eye: expect no season with the "major" opera repertoire and certainly no "traditional" performances. Moreover, as far as opera is concerned, there are only two new scenic productions.
The intention is for OBV to present theater as a hybrid art form, in which different disciplines are blended together. Music combined with visual art (installations or film). There is much Ballet and also Vonk, "the pillar around the development of new talent, inclusion and innovation" receives a large share. Of course, there are also some concerts and the aperitif concerts remain a fixture.
La clemenza di Tito by Mozart (September 2023) is directed by Milo Rau, former artistic director of NTG and current intendant of the Wiener Festwochen. In Mozart's enlightenment opera, the aspect of solidarity and integration will be accentuated. Music director Alejo Pérez conducts. The following opera production is the revival (Dec/Jan 23-24) of Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles by F.C. Bergman. The production from December 2018 will now be conducted by young Belgian conductor Karel Deseure. In February 2024, the creation of a new work by Daan Janssens Brodeck follows, based on Le Rapport de Brodeck by Philippe Claudel, "a dark parable about war, xenophobia and memory". The creation is directed by Fabrice Murgia who also collaborated on the libretto and conducted by Marit Strindlund. At the end of the season (June 2024), there is also the revival of the magnificent production that Robert Carsen created in 1999 of Janáček's Jenufa. (revived in 2004). Here too, Alejo Pérez conducts. Semi-scenic (Tom Goossens) is a series of performances of Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss led by Alexander Joel in November '23.
OBV wants to emphasize that the opera house nurtures its own ballet ensemble with a number of engaging ballet performances. The season opens with Choreolab in which the OBV Dancers perform in a "Mosaic of dance styles". Further, there is an engaging double bill of Igor Stravinsky's Petroesjka and Kurt Weill's Die sieben Todsünden. Wim Vandekeybus is featured with Puur, a performance about myths and Biblical stories. Also Jan Martens, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Richard Siegal are on the program. Following the overwhelming success of C(h)oeurs, "Alain Platel again invites the choir members, dancers and orchestra musicians of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen to a creative dialogue". Ombra is the name of the performance, inspired by the famous aria Ombra mai fu from Händel's opera Serse.
While the family opera Kruistocht by Frederik Neyrinck is currently running successfully in Ghent and will come to Antwerp next season, Vonk is preparing some exciting new music theater productions.
Among the concerts, it is certainly worth looking forward to Gabriel Fauré's Requiem and to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with which OBV will close its season next year.
All information can of course also be found on the operaballet website and in the brochure.
WHAT: season 2023-2024 Opera Ballet Vlaanderen
WHERE: Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Antwerp
WHEN: 4-5 May 2023