Avoiding the usual mudslinging by Emlyn Stam

When the 5 young artists of New Opera Amsterdam first met approximately a year ago they had something unusual in mind. They wanted to put together an opera production company where the stage director, conductor, singers and set designers would collaborate throughout the project to create a coherent whole where everyone would be satisfied.

The usual run of the mill business of opera productions involves everyone working separately and plenty of insults being flung between the conductor and the stage director during the rehearsal period. Performances end up being cancelled or conductors replaced in the ensuing mayhem where both musicians and stage directors/designers end up being unhappy with the final product.

New Opera Amsterdam wanted to avoid this. Their first production which we happily collaborated on can be seen as a success in this regard. The staging was both eloquent, aesthetically and emotionally charged as well as sympathetic to the musical communication between conductor, ensemble and singer.

Carina Vinke conquered the program heroically. Performing Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire by heart is certainly no easy feat. She was then confronted with Maxwell Davies' vocal tour-de force Miss Donnithorne's Maggot executed with bravado and great humor. The actrice Ilse van Ott accompanied her sublimely on the stage.

All of us who were involved certainly believe the collaborative effort in this production represents a new way forward for opera as a total aesthetic art form. We hope the marriage between New Opera Amsterdam and the New European Ensemble will be happy and long-lived. Hopefully in any case happier and longer than Miss Donnithorne's...Perhaps the mudslinging is just about to begin. You're cordially invited to see the performances in Leiden and find out...

by Emlyn Stam

Last Friday we played at the opening of the Antillen Festival at the Doelen in Rotterdam in a tribute concert for the 86 year old legendary guitarist Julian Coco who sat in the front row. The accomplished Antillian classical guitarist Marlon Titre and superb and fiery Antillian jazz pianist Randal Corsen arranged a program of music for the Randal Corsen Quartet, Marlon Titre and the New European Ensemble.

The program was a fusion of elements from folk, jazz and contemporary classical origins. Colourful works by Julian Coco were the basis for some of the arrangements.

The project is a challenging experience for us given that our ensemble and the jazz combo are a great distance apart in terms of timing, rhythm and colour. We had to find a way of fusing our playing together to make a coherent whole.

I think exploring and connecting genres in this way is an important step in the development of music for our time. In a world where global cultures live homogenously in urban centers a fusion of styles is a kind of mirror image of the diverse society we live in.

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