BOSCH BEACH
Keep on smiling
Hieronymus Bosch’s painted scenes look like hell on earth. His seven deadly sins are having a field day while its inhabitants keep on smiling – in spite of their suffering. Is this a symptom of their ignorance or a conscious choice to live that way? 500 years on, in his first opera, the theatre maker Kris Verdonck translates this false paradise into the 21st century. We live in what initially appears to be ‘the best of all possible worlds’, but if seen in a different light, this paradise is not far from being a true inferno.
BOSCH BEACH is set on the white beaches of Lampedusa, where tourists lie sunbathing while refugees wash up in rickety boats. The performance confronts you with the ambiguity of a globalised world and the impossible questions of guilt that this brings with it. Should we adjust our own lifestyles when we witness all this suffering? Or is every individual action a wasted effort in the face of the sheer scope of the challenges and the complexities of their causes and effects? The moral decay in Bosch’s world – and the choice to make no moral choices – also seems to be the easiest way out today. The writer Dimitri Verhulst wrote the libretto and the Portuguese composer Vasco Mendonça wrote the music.
Direction Kris Verdonck | Dramaturgy Kristof Van Baarle | Music Vasco Mendonça | Libretto Dimitri Verhulst based on The Seven Deadly Sins by Jheronimus Bosch | Conductor Etienne Siebens | Vocals Marion Tassou (soprano), Rodrigo Ferreira (countertenor), Damien Pass (baritone) | Orchestra Asko|Schönberg: 1 flute (double alto flute, bass flute, piccolo), 2 clarinets (bass clarinet), 2 trumpets (flugelhorn), 1 trombone, 1 percussionist, 2 violins, 2 viola, 2 cellos, 1 double bass | Extra Robbe Peeters, Simon Van Schuylenbergh, Astrid De Haes, Freek De Craecker | Copier Wim Hoogewerf | Choreographer Marc Iglesias | Repetiteur Piano Lies Colman | Costumes Eefje Wijnings, Andrea Kränzlin | Set Kris Verdonck, Eefje Wijnings | Realization set A Two Dogs Company | Light design Jan Van Gijsel | Technical coordination Jan Van Gijsel, Nic Roseeuw | Technique Bram De Cock, Diederik Suykens, Jan Van Gijsel | Production LOD muziektheater | Production manager Isabel Vermeulen | Coproduction A Two Dogs Company, Jheronimus Bosch 500 Foundation, Kaaitheater, Teatro Maria Matos, House on Fire, Asko|Schönberg, Concertgebouw Brugge, Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian, Theater Mousonturm Frankfurt | In collaboration with Vlaanderen en Nederland gastland 2016 Frankfurter Buchmesse | With the support of Eduard Van Beinum Stichting, the Flemish Authorities & the Flemish Community Commission
A House on Fire co-production; with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union
