Yo! Opera Festival 2009
The fifth edition of the Yo! Opera festival took place from 4 to 8 November 2009 in Utrecht. No less than 5000 visitors set off on an adventure and discovered mellifluous youth opera and exciting music theatre in special locations, and inside the Stadsschouwburg [City Theatre] of Utrecht. The central question of this festival, to both the young audience and the festival organisation, was: What is opera? It was this question which Yo! Opera consciously chose to confront itself and its audience with. Opera: theatre, music, text and images. Of course. But can pop music also be opera? Or become opera?
Youth formed the backbone of this fifth anniversary of the festival. What do they want to change in the world around them? And which role can opera play in those changes? The aim of the festival was to find out what opera is, whom it is meant for and whý opera is. The Stadsschouwburg in Utrecht was the central location of the festival. From the halls to the foyers; from the echoing corridors to the garage, which hosted the chillout: Yo! Opera confiscated the entire building. Next to that, several projects and performances took place in other locations in Utrecht.
Two large scale projects, productions of Yo! Opera itself, were at the heart of the festival programme: De Operaflat and Grensgevallen [Borderline Cases]. For the second time, De Operaflat took place in a flat at the Faustdreef in the district of Overvecht. In the doorway of an apartment, you could undergo a oneminute opera. Grensgevallen consisted of ten short operas, films artistic installations and game productions. These were created by youth from Utrecht and from Berlin, where until 1989 a political border separated the Eastern and Western parts of the city. Pupils of Globe College played a cross-over opera entitled Wegwijzers [Signposts], which was full of electro beats and used texts written by the pupils themselves.
Under the inspiring leadership of VocaalLAB, 25 pupils of Oosterlicht College in Nieuwegein staged the beautiful opera Blow your Mind. The main hall of the Stadsschouwburg welcomed great national and international productions, such as the show Stadt der Hunde by the Neuköllner Oper in Berlin. Wonderful young singers and musicians featured in Solitude by Music Theatre Company Transparant from Antwerp. In that performance, Purcell's music was translated into a current theme: loneliness on the internet. The Black and the Beautiful, a multimedia arrangement of Othello by Xynix Opera, positioned opera next to film, and it did so in a very powerful and conscious way. Children could go see the expressive performance De verknipte zangeres [The Loony Singer], set against a fantastic cardboard décor designed by Rieks Swarte.
A great party, organised in collaboration with youth organisation Eigenwijz brought hundreds of young people to the festival at the Stadsschouwburg, which many of them visited for the first time in their lives!
Youth formed the backbone of this fifth anniversary of the festival. What do they want to change in the world around them? And which role can opera play in those changes? The aim of the festival was to find out what opera is, whom it is meant for and whý opera is. The Stadsschouwburg in Utrecht was the central location of the festival. From the halls to the foyers; from the echoing corridors to the garage, which hosted the chillout: Yo! Opera confiscated the entire building. Next to that, several projects and performances took place in other locations in Utrecht.
Two large scale projects, productions of Yo! Opera itself, were at the heart of the festival programme: De Operaflat and Grensgevallen [Borderline Cases]. For the second time, De Operaflat took place in a flat at the Faustdreef in the district of Overvecht. In the doorway of an apartment, you could undergo a oneminute opera. Grensgevallen consisted of ten short operas, films artistic installations and game productions. These were created by youth from Utrecht and from Berlin, where until 1989 a political border separated the Eastern and Western parts of the city. Pupils of Globe College played a cross-over opera entitled Wegwijzers [Signposts], which was full of electro beats and used texts written by the pupils themselves.
Under the inspiring leadership of VocaalLAB, 25 pupils of Oosterlicht College in Nieuwegein staged the beautiful opera Blow your Mind. The main hall of the Stadsschouwburg welcomed great national and international productions, such as the show Stadt der Hunde by the Neuköllner Oper in Berlin. Wonderful young singers and musicians featured in Solitude by Music Theatre Company Transparant from Antwerp. In that performance, Purcell's music was translated into a current theme: loneliness on the internet. The Black and the Beautiful, a multimedia arrangement of Othello by Xynix Opera, positioned opera next to film, and it did so in a very powerful and conscious way. Children could go see the expressive performance De verknipte zangeres [The Loony Singer], set against a fantastic cardboard décor designed by Rieks Swarte.
A great party, organised in collaboration with youth organisation Eigenwijz brought hundreds of young people to the festival at the Stadsschouwburg, which many of them visited for the first time in their lives!
