LOD, Toneelhuis (Antwerpen) and De Munt (Brussel) in coproduction with Operadagen Rotterdam

music
Kris Defoort
libretto
Kris Defoort, Guy Cassiers, Marianne VanKerkhoven (based on the novel by Yasunari Kawabata)
concept
Kris Defoort, Guy Cassiers
direction
Guy Cassiers
musical lead
Patrick Davin
dramaturgy
Marianne Van Kerkhoven
choreography
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
styleconcept & design
Enrico Bagnoli, Arjen Klerkx
costumes
Tim Van Steenbergen, Mieke Van Buggenhout
actors
Dirk Roofthooft, Katelijne Verbeke
sung by
Barbara Hannigan sopraan, Omar Ebrahim bariton
choir
Susanne Duwe, Alice Foccroulle, Susanne Hawkins, Els Mondelaers
dance
Kaori Ito

ensemble
Asko|Schönberg
coproduction
Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, Asko|Schönberg, Musica – Festival International des musiques d’aujourd’hui de Strasbourg, La Filature (Mulhouse), Operadagen Rotterdam

location
Rotterdamse Schouwburg, Grote Zaal

day
sat may 30, 20.15 hrs (introduction 19.30 hrs)
sun may 31, 20.15 hrs (introduction 19.30 hrs)

time
90 min. (no intermission)

prices
€ 37,50 / € 32,50 / € 27,50
CJP/R'dam pas € 32,50 / € 27,50 / € 22,50
Schouwburgkaart € 30 / € 25 / € 20

type
modern

Their first opera The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (2001) was a huge international success. As they had first done, composer Kris Defoorten and director Guy Cassiers now took a book as a basis for their second opera as well; this was the novel House of the Sleeping Beauties (1961) by the Japanese writer and Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata. It tells of a movingly tender brothel where elderly men can warm themselves in bed alongside the bodies of young girls who lie in a drugged sleep. While a chorus of four female voices describes the bodies of the sleeping girls, soprano Barbara Hannigan sings of the actions of the old man Eguchi. The old man himself is sung by baritone Omar Ebrahim, who relates the emotions and memories awoken in Eguchi by the sight of the young girls. These two roles are performed at the same time by two Belgian actors, Katelijne Verbeke and Dirk Roofthooft.

behind the scenes: