Director Inne Goris seeks answers from Ophelia, the famous dead girl from Shakespeare's "Hamlet", floating in a pond full of flowers.
Being in love =
a tickling in your toes
waiting for that one question
searching for the most beautiful words
doubting everything
chaos in your head
practising saying 'yes'
pain
going crazy
starting anew
giggling helplessly
Twelve girls. They don't know much about love yet. But one thing is certain: one thing they don't want is to be driven crazy by love and end up in a pond full of flowers, like Shakespeare's Ophelia. There must be other ways to tame love, to cherish longing and to care for grief.
Ophelia is an intimate film installation. The audience is immersed in the emotional world of twelve young Ophelias.
By means of still images, fragments of text and music, they pass on their lessons about that one huge emotion: love. Passionate, compelling, funny and sometimes a bit sad.
hetpaleis, LOD music theater and Opera Ballet Vlaanderen present twelve young Ophelias, three string players and a percussionist on stage. Hundreds of love stories from Ghent and Antwerp provided inspiration for Ophelia, a compelling music theater performance for everyone from 8 years old who is, was or wants to be in love.
Thomas Smetryns and SPECTRA first worked together in 2003: old love does not rust.
Thomas Smetryns
Ophelia
concept & stage direction
Inne Goris
composition
Thomas Smetryns
libretto
Dounia Mahammed
music performed by
SPECTRA
musical accompaniment and dramaturgy
Romain Bischoff & Els Mondelaers
scenography and light
Stef Stessel
costumes
Lotte Boonstra
production
LOD muziektheater, hetpaleis & Opera Ballet Vlaanderen
coproduction
Silbersee, SPECTRA
with the support of the Tax Shelter measure of the Belgian federal government.