Music Theatre

Songs of War

Showing the absurdity of war

C. MONTEVERDI

LUCIANO BERIO

Sequenza per voce

H. GOEBBELS

Marit Strindlund

Musical director

Wim Maeseele

Lute & Musical direction

Claron McFadden

Soprano

Reinoud Van Mechelen

Tenor

Kevin Skelton

Countertenor (Hannover)

Dietrich Henschel

Baritone

Tobias Berndt

Baritone (Hannover)

Wouter Van Looy

Stage director

Heiner Goebbels

Music, concept, direction Songs of Wars I Have Seen

Daniel Demoustier

Video

Youssef Chellak

Montage

Jef Lambrecht

Dramaturgy

I Solisti del Vento

Wind ensemble

Songs of War is a staged concert about war and is based on Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and Heiner Goebbels’ Songs of Wars I’ve seen, two indictments of the absurdity of war. In the concept of stage director Wouter Van Looy, the concert as a ritual, is only part of a longer project in which also the audience is guided in a reflection on war and peace.

Production: Operadagen Rotterdam, Muziektheater Transparant, I Solisti del Vento & B’Rock

Coproduction: Muziekcentrum De Bijloke Gent & Herrenhausen Festival Hannover

Thoughtful performance

Max Arian Theaterkrant.nl, 28.05.2013

Songs of war is a purified, distelled musical indictment to the madness of war. It is full of striking linkages. How heartbreaking death and destruction are: today, we feel the same powerlessness as four hundred years ago.

Geert Van der Speeten De Standaard, 03.06.2013

Stein's text read aloud by the musicians themselves, works really well: the lecture is realistic and the timing is perfect.

Frits van der Waa Volkskrant, 27.05.2013

By letting the female members of baroque ensemble B'Rock read the texts by little lamp light, Goebbels creates an atmosphere of subdued domesticity.

Floris Don NRC Handelsblad, 31.05.2013