The World's Wife

A female voice that sounds like a baritone – you think it can’t be done, and yet it’s real. The fully staged chamber opera The World’s Wife is about the complexity of gender relations. American transgender baritone Lucia Lucas retells the archetypal stories of humanity from a female perspective. The libretto is by England’s former ‘poet laureate’ Carol Ann Duffy. Her compatriot Tom W. Green wrote the music. With the Ragazze Quartet and director Jorinde Keesmaat, the performance is powered by a top team of female makers, with Lucia Lucas as the undisputed star.

She is a phenomenon in every sense. But first and foremost, Lucia Lucas is a great singer: she previously sang with the English National Opera and recently made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. As regular guests of the Muziekgebouw, the Ragazze Quartet and Stage Director in Residence Jorinde Keesmaat can be enjoyed more often this season. And in Duffy’s sparkling poetry, anything is possible: in The World’s Wife, we meet a sexually awakening Little Red Riding Hood and the Biblical ruler Herod turns out to be a motherly Queen.

The World’s Wife is a co-production of O. Festival for Opera. Music. Theatre., Barbican, What You See Festival, Grand Theatre

Echoes of Nothing

Elizabeth Goh piano
Madeline Saputra soprano 

Programme:

[Indonesia]
Mochtar Embut Setitik Embun 
Iskandar Kisah Mawar di Malam Hari
Trisutji Kamal Perjumpaan 

[Singapore]
Tsao Chieh Old House on Ann Siang Hill
Phoon Yew Tien 三月流火 Heaty Third Month 
Phoon Yew Tien 太平湖 Taiping Lake

Programme booklet (Dutch)