As a part of Nurture the Future within the Music Up Close Network project, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra performed the multi-media opera Anne & Zef in the spring of 2017.
The piece, written by Dutch librettist Ad the Bont and composer Monique Krüs, has been interpreted by two different directors so two different versions of the opera were performed in the same month in Amsterdam and Rome (click here to view the pics).
Details of both productions are listed below:
1 March 2017 at 13:00 and 15:00 (school performances)
2 March 2017 at 13:00 and 15:00 (school performances)
4 March 2017 at 13:30 and 15:30
5 March 2017 at 13:30 and 15:30
6 March 2017 at 13:00 and 15:00 (school performances)
Nationaal Holocaust Museum – Amsterdam
Anne en Zef
Multimedia opera for young people
Music by Monique Krüs
Libretto by Ad de Bont
Ensemble of Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra|Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra Academy
Huba Hollókői conductor
Corina van Eijk director
Lilian Farahani Anne (soprano)
Benjamin de Wilde Zef (baritone)
Koen Keevel sound engineer
Yorick Stam assistant director/video cues
Jolanda Lanslots stage designer
Pieter van Rooij costume designer
Henk Post lighting designer
Maya Schiffers make-up
Film images
Dinand van der Wal camera
Henry Vrijsen lighting
Synco Scholvinck editor
Jolanda Lanslots / BoemanFX (Luc Boestan and Ruben Vroman) post-production
12 March 2017 at 17:30
13 March 2017 at 10:30
14 March 2017 at 10:30
Auditorium Parco della Musica – Rome
Anna e Zef
Multimedia opera for young people
Music by Monique Krüs
Libretto by Ad de Bont
Italian version: Marco Morgantini
Ensemble Novecento
Carlo Rizzari conductor
Cesare Scarton director
Costanza Fontana Anna (soprano)
Giorgio Celenza Zef (baritone)
Simone Ruggiero reciting voice
Michele Della Cioppa set designer
Flaviano Pizzardi motion graphics
Giuseppe Bellini costume designer
Andrea Tocchio lighting designer
Silvia Alù assistant director
Maria Rossi Franchi assistant set designer
Desirée Scuccuglia répétiteur and musical assistant
Recommended age: 12 years
Anna is Anna Frank, the fifteen-year-old Jewish girl who died in Auschwitz after two years of hiding in an attic in Amsterdam. Zef is Zef Bunga, an Albanian boy her age, killed in a family feud that forced him to hide out at home for two years. Two youths, one real-life experience and another experience imagined in a possible reality, their earthly events separated in time and space but united by a single destiny: a life prematurely broken by the violence of adults. Meeting in an afterlife that reflects their eternal youth, and getting to know one another with the fun, levity and irreverence typical of their age, they share their stories and the new destiny that awaits them.