Ombra

Opera Antwerpen, Opera Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium

All photos (1)

Wednesday 10 April 2024

8 PM

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

Can I choose my seats?

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Important Info

Type: Modern Ballet

City: Antwerp, Belgium

Starts at: 20:00

Ticket delivery: E-Tickets

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

Can I choose my seats?

Overview

Alain Platel brings together choir members, dancers and orchestral musicians for a new performance that puts encounters at centre stage.

‘Never was a shade of a tree so lovely...’, it says in Händel’s famous aria ‘Ombra mai fu’. Alain Platel and visual artist Berlinde De Bruyckere take inspiration from the shade of a tree as a meeting place, as a place where people all over the world and throughout history come together to rest, meet or discuss problems. De Bruyckere’s poetic world of images seems to share a kinship with Platel’s universe.

After the overwhelming success of C(H)OEURS 2022, Platel once again invites the chorus members, dancers and orchestral musicians of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen to join a creative dialogue. Together with singer and performer TK Russell and guest choreographers Mélanie Lomoff and Luis Marrafa, they create the performance Ombra. Composer Steven Prengels is developing a new orchestral score in which he interweaves well-known classical masterpieces by the likes of Händel, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven into new layers of meaning.

Coproduction with laGeste

Venue Info

Opera Antwerpen - Antwerp
Frankrijklei 1

The Royal Flemish Opera was the almost 100-year-old independent Antwerp city opera until its merger in 1981 with the Royal Opera in Ghent. Both city operas were merged into the Opera voor Vlaanderen organization, renamed Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in 2014. Anyone entering an opera house immediately gets a special feeling. The imposing buildings with their ancient decorations and stately staircases and columns immediately transport you to another era: that of red carpets and opulent luxury. Going to a performance in this unique setting gives your opera visit that little bit more. However, opera houses are not only venues for performances, they also tell a story in themselves. Although they are old, they have not always existed, and both locations have undergone extensive restoration.

Opera has been performed in Antwerp since 1660, first in the Spaansche Pant on the Grote Markt and later in the Tapissiers building on the site where the Bourlaschouwburg would later be built.
In 1834, the Bourlaschouwburg opened as the Théâtre Royal. Only French repertoire was performed. Some locals still refer to the Bourlaschouwburg as 'French opera'.
Spurred on by composer Peter Benoit, among others, Antwerp decided in 1899 to build a Flemish Opera as a counterpart to the Bourlaschouwburg.
One of the ideas was to build an opera house in the city park, but this met with much protest. It was feared that the park would lose its character.
Eventually, the choice was made to build the Kunstlei (the current Frankrijklei) on the spot where the covered Hallen en Markten (the Criée) used to be. These had moved to the Van Wesenbekestraat. Construction started in 1904 and lasted three years.
On 18 October 1907, the Flemish Opera in Antwerp was festively opened. The neo-baroque building decorated in Louis XVI style was immediately loved by the public.
All the public, rich and not so rich, entered the hall, a very democratic idea for that time. Those with money walked straight up the stately stairs to the ground floor or first balcony. Those who sat on the higher, cheaper balconies had to take a separate staircase to get there.
Today, the hall has 1081 seats. The ceiling fresco represents Rythmus and shows a male figure surrounded by nine female muses.
At the opening, the opera was technically very modern, as it made full use of the new electric light. The opening of the stage measures 11.90 metres in width.
The stage tower is 23 metres high.
In 2004, the opera closed for the first time for a thorough renovation, which was to last three years. The technology was modernized, the stage was given a side stage, and a new building for offices and workrooms was built.