Dutch National Opera

Denis & Katya

Philip Venables (1979)

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Dates

11-18 Mar 2022

Location

Dutch National Opera & Ballet, Main Stage

Running time

1:05, no intermission

Tickets

Not available

Online (im)mortality

Two teenage runaways livestream their final hours from a squat, leaving behind a trail of devastating videos. The chamber opera Denis & Katya explores public reactions to the couple’s tragic fate. It is an operatic investigation into how stories are formed and shared in this age of internet voyeurism, conspiracy theories, fake news and having to be online 24/7.

Online (im)mortality

Director Ted Huffman and composer Philip Venables based their most recent opera on a true story. On 14 November 2016, two Russian 15-year-olds started livestreaming their story on the website Periscope. The live stream revealed how they ran away from home, went into hiding, had a confrontation with the police and how this ultimately led to their death. As the day wore on, Denis and Katya continued to livestream and their online viewers continued to grow. Conspiracy theories abounded, fan sites appeared. Denis and Katya became an internet sensation that, much like their own lives, was only very brief.

A cast of two young talents

The chamber opera Denis & Katya looks at how stories emerge, how they are told and how they are then shared on social media. The six characters in Denis & Katya, portrayed by just two singers, reconstruct the teenagers’ story from different perspectives. The testimonies are based on interviews with people who were closely involved with what happened. Ted Huffman has worked with young talents from DNO before (Les Mamelles de Tirésias and Trouble in Tahiti/Clemency), and will do so now again with two young and talented singers. They will be accompanied by four cellists of the Residentie Orchestra The Hague.

Performance information

Libretto  Ted Huffmann

Musical direction  Tim Anderson

Stage direction  Ted Huffman

Set and lighting design  Andrew Lieberman

Costumes  Raphaela Rose

Video  Pierre Martin

Sound  Simon Hendry

Dramaturgy  Ksenia Ravvina

Soloists

Michael Wilmering

Inna Demenkova*

*Dutch National Opera Studio

Orchestra Musicians of the Residentie Orkest The Hague

Original Production by Opera Philadelphia, Music Theatre Wales and Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier

A chamber opera in two acts based on a true story

Sung in English

Denis & Katya - podcast

How do you make an opera about a gruesome, true media report? Baritone Michael Wilmering, who constantly has to switch between different characters in two (!) languages in Denis & Katya, and dramaturge Jasmijn van Wijnen take you along in this extraordinary opera (in Dutch).

Denis & Katya - podcast

By: Emma Lesuis

Scene Denis & Katya | Photo: Milagro Elstak

A top production."

"Everything comes together ingeniously in a great contemporary chamber opera, which is as oppressive as it is impressive.

13 March

Composer Venables and librettist Ted Huffman make the stress of Denis and Katya and the nervousness of the digital present felt."

"Opera does not get much more topical than this.

13 March

Rehearsals Denis & Katya | Photo: Milagro Elstak

Residentie Orkest The Hague

Residentie Orkest The Hague is more than 100 years old and belongs to the great symphonic orchestras of the Netherlands. This innovative orchestra performs on important stages in the Netherlands and abroad. They open this season with their entry into the new cultural complex Amare and the start of their new chief conductor Anja Bihlmaier. Recent DNO productions that were accompanied by the Residentie Orkest The Hague were Dialogues des Carmélites, Madama Butterfly and Nabucco. In 2022, musicians of Residentie Orkest The Hague join us for the opera Denis & Katya.