“To Be Sung” Directed by Jorinde Keesmaat

On May 17th and 19th, the opera “To Be Sung” by Pascal Dusapin, stage directed by Jorinde Keesmaat, will be performed at the Center for Contemporary Opera (CCO) in New York. Jorinde Keesmaat is a freelance stage director of opera performances and staged classical concerts in the Netherlands and abroad. She is currently a Guest Director-in-Residence at CCO.

“To Be Sung”

“To Be Sung” is an opera in one act. The libretto was adapted by the composer from a short story by Gertrude Stein; “A Lyrical Opera Made By Two (To Be Sung)”. As M. Dusapin states, “this is my tribute to American literature. ‘To Be Sung’ is an ambitious piece. I wanted to write something amniotic, extremely sensitive, that situates listening within an almost metaphysical feeling of understanding through light, that demands to be heard through the mystery of the eye.”

About Jorinde Keesmaat

Jorinde Keesmaat creates multi-disciplinary performances that have a search for relationships between the individual spectator and the actors and musicians. She is Guest Director-in-Residence for the period of 2016-2018 at CCO to direct a series of four productions over a three-year period.

Past Work

Jorinde Keesmaat is the permanent director of the concert series TRACKS at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. She also directed a semi-staged version of Mozart’s operas Don Giovanni, Zauberflöte and Le Nozze di Figaro, commissioned by the Residentie Orkest. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra asked Keesmaat to direct the opera Hans en Grietje. In 2015, Keesmaat directed the opera La Clemenza di Tito at Opera National de Montpellier.

Keesmaat also directed the first concert – with Geert Mak and Andreas Scholl – in a series of jubilee concerts in honor of the 125th anniversary of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. For a jubilee concert of Theater Carré in Amsterdam, Keesmaat made the show “1000 stemmen in Carré” a concert with a thousand singers composed by Merlijn Twaalfhoven. The Grachtenfestival 2015 commissioned Keesmaat to direct the Opening concert. Jorinde Keesmaat regularly directs projects for the Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest, Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, Noord Nederlands Orkest, Gelders Orkest and the Residentie Orchestra.

Agenda

• May 17th, 8pm | “To Be Sung” by Pascal Dusapin, stage director: Jorinde Keesmaat | 85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn
• May 19th, 8pm | “To Be Sung” by Pascal Dusapin, stage director: Jorinde Keesmaat | 85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn