09 Mar EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS: LOST AND FOUND

EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS
Every two years EUROPALIA puts together an artistic programme that focuses on a country or a theme. The theme for the 2021 focused on an invention that changed the world: the train.

EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS presented a programme with space for visual arts, performing arts, film, music, literature and debate. The train was examined from four perspectives: impact on society, sustainability, time and movement.
This prompted Muziektheater Transparant and Casco Phil to use the station as a crossroads for the creation of an opera.
How is an opera composed, how is a text distilled by the librettist from messages from chance passers-by, from a text message or even a letter. Experience the rehearsal. The rush hour never was so inspiring! Passers-by became spectators, travellers became participants.

EUROPALIA focused on the trains: the tracks literally connected the continent. Together with Muziektheater Transparant, Casco Phil developed a connecting opera experience. A composer and a librettist spend a week in a glass box in the stations of Antwerp, Brussels Central, London St Pancras and Rotterdam.
Every day, they composed a short, topical opera, co-determined by passers-by and their stories and performed during rush hours. The final composition was a performance and a sound installation with live musicians and singers that could be visited freely for a week by anyone who wanted to stop for a moment, either on purpose or by accident.

Lost & Found:
An idea of Casco Phil. A production of EUROPALIA, Casco Phil and Muziektheater Transparant in the framework of EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS (2021).
Coproduction Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, IOA International Opera Academy, O. Festival for Opera. Music. Theatre, BOZAR and Royal Opera House London.

(Realised with the support of the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government and SNCB)

Annelies Van Parys: composition
Gaea Schoeters: libretto
Benjamin Haemhouts: conductor
Casco Phil: orchestra