Degrowth Opera

Scientists and many economists are increasingly urging the need for degrowth, with fairer distribution and better management and renewal of resources. 

This forum will address the following questions:

• What are the implications of degrowth for a resource-intensive art form like opera? 
• How might we incorporate the demands of eco-dramaturgy into all aspects of our work? 
• Throughout its history opera has engaged with directly with politics. What are the particular affordances of opera as an artform for communicating the urgency of climate and environmental action? 
• What would a non-anthropocentric form of eco-opera look like? 

The questions posed here arise from the production of a new opera as part of the Dutch National Opera’s Opera Forward Festival 2024. The Shell Trial is based on the 2020 theatre play De zaak Shell by Anoek Nuyens and Rebekka de Wit, about the lead up to a trial in 2021 when a Dutch court ruled that Shell was legally responsible for its contribution to climate change, the first time such liability has been recognised. 

In this discussion forum Julie Fuchs, Sustainability Coordinator at Dutch National Opera and Romy Roelofsen and Gable Roelofsen, directors of The Shell Trial, will join with composer, theatre maker and climate activist Michel van der Aa, Romain Bischoff, Artistic Director of the contemporary music theatre company Silbersee, and Dani Ploeger, artist, activist and Professor  of Performance and Technology at the University of Music and Theatre, Munich. 

The event will be presented by Nicholas Till, Pierre Audi Chair in Music Theatre and Opera at the University of Amsterdam, and students on the Music and International Dramaturgy MA programmes at UvA.