Operadagen Rotterdam 2018 Is All About Heroism

The 13th edition of Operadagen Rotterdam, the festival for contemporary opera and music theatre, runs from Friday 18 through Sunday 27 May 2018. Operadagen Rotterdam presents more than 100 performances in major theatres, unusual venues, and outdoor locations in Rotterdam. The festival theme for 2018 is heroism with fascinating stories about the trials and challenges of a hero's journey. Online ticket sales of the first performances have just started. The full programme will be presented at the festive kick-off on 15 March 2018.

Festival opener Earth Diver focuses on perception
Operadagen Rotterdam 2018 opens in the Nieuwe Luxor Theater with Earth Diver by director Wouter Van Looy, who outlines a portrait of a seemingly fictitious society in crisis. Earth Diver is a music-theatrical spectacle revolving around the phenomenon of perception. The audience is situated inside a gigantic installation, literally surrounded from up close by the famous German singers of ChorWerk Ruhr as Heinrich Schütz's comforting baroque music adds lustre to Wim Catrysse's powerful video images. The performance is a co-production with the Ruhrtriennale.

International festival favourites
The programme features international top productions, modern classics, and high-profile new work by young talent with a contemporary voice. The ensemble Cappella Mediterranea and conductor Leonardo García Alarcón have achieved the status of global super stars within a short space of time. They are back at Operadagen Rotterdam after doing L'Orfeo in 2017. The latest production is about cultural interchange in times of colonisation and suppression. The welcome wrinkly rockers of Young @ Heart are also returning to the festival with their new energetic show in Theater Rotterdam. Online ticket sales have already started for these performances as well as Earth Diver (which opens the festival), Headroom, The Christina Cyclus, and Ein deutsches Requiem.

Heroic stories
Operadagen Rotterdam keeps a finger on the pulse of today's world; its performances reflect topical social themes. The 2018 festival presents Heroism, the second of four yearly themes under the umbrella of Lost & Found. The intrepid hero enters the eye of the storm, defies danger, confronts his demons, and ventures into strange places far from home. Heroes often display the greatest courage in the darkest moments of the journey. Mata Hari and Mary Stuart are among the heroines paying a visit to the festival and so is Leonore from Beethoven's opera Fidelio. All exemplify heroism in their own way.

International platform with Opera Europa
Operadagen Rotterdam is a global opera and music theatre network encompassing professionals from around the world. A delegation from Opera Europa will attend for the second time since 2010 this edition. The members of this international network of opera companies and festivals convene to take part in conversations and presentations on the subject of Collaboration between smaller opera companies and large opera houses and festivals. They bring their own stakeholders to Operadagen Rotterdam to facilitate even more meetings and exchanges of information between people in the field. FEDORA, a cross-border non-profit organisation for the development of young opera and ballet talent, will also assemble in Rotterdam during the current edition of the festival.

About Operadagen Rotterdam
Operadagen Rotterdam is a worldwide opera and music theatre festival featuring contemporary, innovative, and ground-breaking productions by established international makers as well as young and adventurous talent. The festival presents stories about pushing back frontiers and the search for a new identity under the central festival theme Lost & Found from 2017 through 2020. Operadagen Rotterdam lets the audience rediscover classic operas from days long gone in brand-new arrangements as it leaves the beaten tracks with new music theatre performances, and points to exciting and unknown horizons. Please go to www.operadagenrotterdam.nl to view more information about the upcoming festival edition and several first performances.