Opera

Ändere die Welt!

Pedro Beriso & Mart van Berckel

If you could change the world right now, what would you do? Change the world! by Mart van Berckel and Pedro Beriso, showing at Semper Zwei, provides a great opportunity to reflect on this and a whole host of other questions. The production aims to transport the audience to the day after a revolution: in a room full of empty chairs (the remnants of barricades), four singers meet after devastating events to reflect, to mourn and to hope … and also to think of a way forward.

But they are not alone. They are joined by spoken-word artist Amara van der Elst as a figure who is simultaneously both inside and outside events. According to Mart van Berckel: “Like a presenter or a storyteller, she is responsible for what happens on stage; she can press ‘play’ or ‘pause’, rewind or fast-forward. She’s the motor driving the performance.” She addresses the audience directly with challenging texts, constantly throwing up questions that demand an answer. Amara van der Elst partly drew these questions from the lyrics of the songs which, like a collage, were compiled for this production. The music from both the 19th and 20th centuries runs from Ludwig van Beethoven to Hanns Eisler. Alongside a heady sense of revolutionary tension, the production creates space for personal reflection. Change the world! That’s not a challenge but rather an invitation to tackle difficult questions.

Ein Pasticcio mit Musik von Hanns Eisler, Robert Schumann, Sergej Rachmaninow, Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, Ludwig van Beethoven, Kurt Weill, Dmitri Schostakowitsch, Richard Wagner und Othmar Schoeck

In deutscher, englischer, französischer und russischer Sprache

Premiere
19. December 2024,

No further performances in the current season.

Premiere cast

Eine Produktion von Dutch National Opera (Amsterdam), Dutch National Touring Opera (Enschede) und Opera Zuid (Maastricht) in Zusammenarbeit mit Dutch National Opera Studio (Amsterdam)

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