2 May
Madrugada
Paradiso, Weteringschans 6-8 (Tel: 020 626 4521)
Online: www.paradiso.nl
Time: 8.30pm; Price: EUR 16

One of the most popular bands in Norway, they take their name from the Spanish word 'Madruga' which means the hour before sunrise (the blue hour). Suitably fitting to their music which is a little on the dark, Nick Cave-esque side, it's probably responsible for more cases of S.A.D. then they would care to admit.

4 May
Comedy: Quiet Night In
Comedy Theater, Nes 110
Online: www.quietnightin.nl
Time: 8.30pm; Price: EUR 7.50

Watch English-language comedy clips – in 15-minute themed chunk – on a big screen with fellow chucklers. Expect two hours of top comedy moments, mixing up the witty, the wicked, the whacky, the wonderful and the downright weird... With  MC Mark Poysden, WJ Nicole Beutler, VJ James Murray, the QNI Players and DJ Alec Smart.

Monday May 5

 World dance: Pamina Devi

www.muziektheater.nl
20:15h, E35-E15.  Also Wednesday and Thursday.

An Enlightenment-era work that incorporates magic, “The Magic Flute” both embraces rationality and captures our need to go beyond it.  So when choreographer Sophiline Cheam Shapiro sought to tell of her homeland, Cambodia, under the Khmer Rouge – a time of “ideology so extreme it loses its humanity,” she said – she turned to the Mozartean opera as model.  The dance-drama “Pamina Devi” lifts its storyline almost wholesale, but transposes the tale of struggle against authority and eventual liberation to a Cambodian setting.  With 31 female performers in gosh-wow costumes, the 90-minute piece proceeds languidly, with an emphasis on mood and gesture.  Cheam Shapiro, born in 1967, was one of the first to revive traditional Cambodian dance after the Khmer Rouge’s ravages, and she also wrote the text and the Cambodian music that animate this work.  Her esthetic is one of reclamation, not postmodern pastiche, and so offers us a direct taste of a culture both little-known and exquisite – though strong enough to survive five years of brutal repression.  In Cambodian, with Dutch supertitles.  (Steve Schneider)

 
6, 10, 18, 21, 25, 28 May
Opera: Tristan und Isolde
Het Muziektheater, Amstel 3 (Tel: 020 625 5455)
Online: www.muziektheater.nl
Time: 6pm (1.30pm 18, 25 May); Price: EUR 30-105 (EUR 15-90)

One of Wagner’s longest-held wishes was to compose a work on the Tristan legend. He used Gottfried von Strassburg’s epic as his primary source, but his plot also reflects a personal conflict: Wagner was at that time in love with Mathilde, the wife of his patron Otto Wesendonk whilst his introduction to the pessimistic philosophies of Arthur Schopenhauer also finds an echo in the opera. Wagner originally conceived the work as a simple love story transposed into music drama, only for it to develop into his most revolutionary composition. The actual plot is reduced to a minimum: Tristan has killed Isolde’s betrothed and is bringing her to be the bride of his liege-lord King Mark. Isolde seeks redress for her bethrothed’s murder and is herself prepared to die. In the supposed face of death both are able to admit their true feelings of love for each other. Their love, however, is not to be requited in this life. The Dutch National Opera are accompanied by the Dutch Philharmonic Orchestra. Note the opera is German with Dutch subtitles.

Exhibitions

Until 18 May
John Everett Millais (1829-1896)
Van Gogh Museum
You might recognise John Everett Millais’ painting Ophelia, but not everybody knows that he let his model, the girlfriend of a fellow painter, lie in the water for hours while he was painting her. This and many other interesting details on Millais’ art and technique are shown to the visitors of the van Gogh museum in this current exhibition which displays the widest collection of his works since 1898.  On three floors the visitors can admire not only his most famous paintings like Ophelia, The Two Princes and The Boyhood of Raleigh, but also his many illustrations and sketches. A child prodigy, Millais was the youngest student allowed into the Royal Academy and he is now considered the foremost painter of the English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Particularly impressive is his ability to capture the expressions of children and women and his attention to the smallest details (see the shoes in his Ferdinand Lured by Ariel). (Michele Carloni)

Until June 2008
Superheroes and Schlemiels

Joods Historisch Museum, Nieuwe Amstelstraat 1 (Tel: 020 531 0310)
Online: www.jhm.nl
Time: 11am-5pm Daily; Price: EUR 7.50

Superman, Maus, The Rabbi’s Cat and many other heroes and anti-heroes from the art of comics feature in this exhibition of comics and graphic novels by Jewish artists. Leading comic artists present their vision of a Jewish past in original drawings, printed matter and film material dating from 910 to the present day. They include Will Eisner, Joe Kubert, Ben Katchor and Rutu Modan.

Superman, the superhero champion and saviour of the human race, was actually Jewish!  Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, both sons of Jewish immigrants, the comic strip reveals the integration efforts of American Jewish society through its cartoonists and comic artists. Superhelden en sjlemielen in the Joods Historisch Museum is an exhibition dedicated to Jewish cartoonists and comic book illustrators. Although the works shown focuse on the anti-German war propaganda, the visitors may also enjoy many examples of humoristic, dramatic and self-ironic Jewish art. On display are many original drawings and sketches by Will Eisner, recognised worldwide as one of the best graphic novelists. Born in Brooklyn from Jewish immigrants, Eisner can be reckoned among the pioneers of the American comic and cartoon strips. His work often told the history of immigrant communities or expressed the alienating life within the metropolis: “After many years of living in a big city, one gradually develops a sense of wonder, because so much that happens there is unexplained and seems magical” (quoted from Will Eisner New York life in the big city - 2006) . (Michele Carloni)

Until May 25
Beatrix: 70 years in images
Het Schielandhuis, Korte Hoogstraat 31, Rotterdam
Ph: (0)10 217 6767;
www.schielandshuis.nl


The life of the reigning Dutch monarch who was born 70 years ago in 1938 is charted via stamps, billlboards, historic film material and puzzles.

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[Copyright Expatica 2008]