This new opera is based on the intensely moving story of Mariken van Nieumeghen, the young woman ‘who spent seven years with the devil’. In 2015, it was 500 years ago that this miracle play was first printed in Antwerp.

We follow the inquisitive but vulnerable Mariken, sung by winner of the Dutch Film Festival award, the Golden Calf, Hannah Hoekstra, on a trip through a deep, dark world. Here she meets intriguing characters, such as a harpy, a seductive devil and an inquisitorial pope. On analogy with the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, she comes from a protected courtyard near Nijmegen to the ‘garden of earthly delights’ that is Antwerp, where she leads a life of abandon. She leaves Antwerp to go to the Wittevrouwen Convent in Maastricht, where she is shackled, does penance and prays for salvation.

Artists

OPERA2DAY
ASKO|SCHÖNBERG
CAPPELLA AMSTERDAM
ENSEMBLE TETRAKTYS
composition Calliope Tsoupaki
condcutor Hernán Schvartzman
Mariken Hannah Hoekstra
Duivel Julian Podger
Oom Harry van der Kamp
Tante Jill Feldman
Paus Michael Chance
narrator Joop Keesmaat
direction Serge van Veggel
scenography Herbert Janse
costumes Miriam Pater
light Uri Rapaport
libretto Karim Ameur and Serge van Veggel

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