Good news: Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe will return to O. in May 2022 with the exhilarating performance MADRIGALS. A very special take on Monteverdi’s repertoire, edgy and brimming with surprises. Something to anticipate with glee! Earlier, Benjamin featured at Operadagen with Les Ballets de la Nuit and during De Avond van de Belofte.
In MADRIGALS, theatre maker Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe dares to take on Claudio Monteverdi. This prince of late Italian Renaissance music published his vibrant Madrigali guerrieri ed amorosi toward the end of his life. Meirhaeghe moulds his sparkling vocal works, about war and love, into a call for freedom, galvanised by belligerence and passion. With the ancient Greeks in mind he creates a contemporary and unbridled orgy as the boundaries between the human and the god-like dissolve.
To Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe, theatre is a temporal crossroads or rather, a time machine situated in the present as distant pasts and futures, origins and utopias merge into a new radical narrative with an apposite sound and cast. Beyond the distinction between insider and outsider, MADRIGALS presents a community overflowing with uniqueness and talent as conservative dogmas and stigmas give way to sexuality and release.
“Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe is one of today’s most multifaceted and fascinating young music theatre makers. Earlier, he featured at Operadagen with Les Ballets de la Nuit as well as during De Avond van de Belofte. He returns to Rotterdam in 2022 with an exhilarating performance and a very special take on Monteverdi’s repertoire, which is daring and full of surprising elements. Perfect for O., in other words.” – Guy Coolen (O.’s artistic director)
Always up to date
Sign up for the O. newsletter
Locatie
O. gebruikt haar stad als podium en decor. Veel voorstellingen zijn op onalledaagse en onontdekte locaties in de stad: pleinen, woonkamers, kerken, een oude wasserij, winkel, bovenop de Bijenkorf en zelfs een fitnesscentrum.
