On the 16th and 17th of May, we present Anne&Zef during the International May Festival at the State Theatre of Wiesbaden. Lilian Farahani and Benjamin de Wilde play the roles of Anne and Zef. 

Anne&Zef is the story of teenagers Anne Frank and Zef, an Albanese boy from our time. Anne died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Zef is the victim of a vendetta. They meet each other in heaven and realise that, despite their cultural differences, they have much in common. Anne is a writer, Zef loves to act. They both have occasional difficulties with their parents. The act of describing their lives brings them closer together.

To celebrate 30 years of Opera Spanga, stage director Corina van Eijk and repetiteur/coach Mark van Nispen shall give two opera workshops, one for conservatoire students and one for amateur singers. The workshops shall take place in the French village of Artigeas in October 2019.

The workshop will focus on shaping music and text. Developing awareness of the body and voice combined with a thorough musical and dramatic analysis shall give form to the focus of the workshop. Besides a number of essential exercises, the development of awareness shall mainly be supported by focussing on arias and duets.

Workshop dates
8-14 October: conservatoire students (minimal entry level final year of Bachelor)
16-22 October: amateur singers
To apply or receive further information, please contact info@markvannispen.com

All of our visitors to Aida, particularly those who attended on the 9th of August, were promised a recording of the performance. Thanks to a great deal of hard work, we are finally able to present our Aida!

In the summer of 2019 Opera Spanga will be celebrating its 30th year. For this special anniversary we will be presenting a double-bill met Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (The Clowns, 1892) and Puccini’s Il Tabarro (The Overcoat, 1918). Female infidelity plays a central part In both operas. The characters Nedda (Pagliacci) and Giorgetta (Il Tabarro) are not driven by lust, but by the urgent need to reinvent themselves.

TICKET SALES

2018 was a great and fully European year for Opera Spanga and the artistic team, with no fewer than nine performances outside the Netherlands:

• The wonderful open-air theater Piazza Teatru Rjal in Valletta was full to the brim every evening during performances of Opera Spanga's Aida (Giuseppe Verdi).
• In conjunction with Valetta 2018 European Cultural Capital, Opera Spanga's artistic team also produced Corto Maltese, a ballad of the salty sea (Monique Krüs) in Teatru Manoel.
• Anne&Zef (Monique Krüs) was performed by two very young talented Albanian singers in four theaters in Albania and Kosovo.

The Leeuwarder Courant published a nice piece about our performances in Malta (in Dutch).

For our performances of Pagliacci & Il Tabarro you will again be able to book an arrangement, including, among other things, two nights in a hotel, dinner and a kayak trip through the environs of Spanga. You will be staying in the atmospheric Golden Tulip Hotel Tjaarda in Oranjewoud. You can book for 239 Euros via Hotel Tjaarda.

Tuesday evening, July 24th saw the premiere of Aida. The NRC, the Volkskrant and Theaterkrant all awarded the production four stars, and the Leeuwarder Courant even five stars: “ Van Eijk keeps the scene calm and well-ordered. She carefully metes out her outstanding inventions. It is all-in excellent balance.”