Quarantaine Eiland
Musical journey in an extraordinary location at the Port of Rotterdam
OPERA2DAY & O.
As a visitor to the site-specific performance Quarantaine Eiland, you get a tour of the Heijplaat quarantine area, a green oasis in Rotterdam with a unique history. It was set up a long time ago as an institution for seamen suffering from contagious diseases but in the end, the facility only housed Jewish refugees, those afflicted by typhus, and psychiatric patients. During the walk, you will be immersed in history. And not just due to the location.
Poignant stories and evocative songs about epidemics and plagues in times long gone and from the far corners of the earth come alive in Quarantaine Eiland. A raw blues ballad and tear-jerking Turkish love song, a recited fragment from a diary written in London at the time of The Great Plague, and a verse that originated in 14th-century Florence, which was ravaged by the plague. Music and testimonies overflowing with sadness and mourning as well as with a fighting spirit and the hope that the times will get better. Quarantaine Eiland makes you feel that at times like these, we are connected across the world and down the centuries.
