Muziektheater Transparant

Going from the artistic and social topicality, production house Muziektheater Transparant enters into an intensive dialogue with artists from various disciplines and wants to create, renew and present musical-theatre in its entire diversity for a wide audience.

The voice is placed firmly at the centre of the projects, and it continually blends the old and the new. Also other disciplines like visual arts, film, video, graphics are integrated in the productions. The company pays particular attention to offering contemporary musicians the chance to develop and try new work. It has produced operas by Wim Henderickx and worked with composers like Jan Van Outryve and Eric Sleichim. A more theatrical approach is added with directors Caroline Petrick and Wouter Van Looy. Annelies Van Parys and Joachim Brackx, two most promising Flemish composers, are invited for a three-year residence to put their first steps in music theatre.

Transparant is internationally active: touring productions are an important part of their work, and it has performed at many festivals, including the Salzburger Festspiele, Edinburgh International Festival, the Holland Festival, the KunstenfestivaldesArts and at several European Capitals of Culture (Bruges 02, Lille 04, artist in residence in Stavanger 08, etc.) . This variety of shows, artists and production methods gives Muziektheater Transparant a unique national and international character.

This season

Over the past season, Muziektheater Transparant has produced some enthralling musical theatre in collaboration with a number of house artists including composers Wim Henderickx, Eric Sleichim, Joachim Brackx, Annelies van Parys, Jan van Outryve and directors Josse de Pauw, Caroline Petrick and Wouter van Looy. We try to engage respectfully with old texts or music and, in doing so, shed light on this material in a different manner. For example, the music of Schubert in RUHE is like a comforting blanket, the madrigals of Monteverdi acquire a meaning for our contemporary society and in A New Requiem the confrontation of a new text by Jeroen Brouwers with Mozart’s Requiem sheds new light on this masterpiece.

In addition to this contemporary approach to our musical heritage, it is also important to create new work and shape tomorrow’s repertoire. Or to bring recently created work onto the stage in a new production.

For example, there is Blond Eckbert, a chamber opera by the British composer Judith Weir directed by Wouter Van Looy on commission to the Bregenzer Festspiele and Opera XXI. This opera, based on a text by the early-Romantic German author Ludwig Tieck, is a dark tale of the tension between nature and mankind. It is about people who isolate themselves from society and, as a result, even go so far as to commit murder.

This isolation is found in the figure of Medea, the mythical woman who kills her own children as a result of her disappointments in love. Together with director Paul Koek of the Veenfabriek, author Peter Verhelst and composer Wim Henderickx seek to discover what such a tragic story can mean for us today.

More Greek mythology can be found in Oresteia by the composer Xenakis, to whom Annelies van Parys formulates a musical response. Together with artist Michaël Borremans and composer Corrie van Binsbergen, Josse de Pauw creates a strange figure who tries to cross the mountains out of yearning. These are all works which pose questions, often originating from within a historical context but nevertheless focused on the present. Current and universal subjects, such as social isolation, the relationship to higher powers and man’s relationship with nature are a connecting theme throughout all these projects.