Belá

The auditorium goes dark. And then the music begins. Not just any music, but melodies that rang out hundreds of years ago in the fields of Hungary and Romania. Music to which people danced in times of joy and sorrow, at the first snow and the first flower. Composer Béla Bartók listened to those old songs and wrote them down.

Behind every tree lies an old story: about a cricket that wants to get married, or an old woman singing about how much she’d love to dance with a handsome young man once more. Can you already smell the scent of earth winding its way into your nose?

Singer Lieselot De Wilde stands in the centre of the hall and sings as if she were the seasons themselves. Anne Niepold’s accordion plays cheerfully and wildly, softly and quietly. All around them, an entire orchestra breathes in unison: musicians who together create one great sound, at times stormy and grand, at others whispering and delicate, like the first sunlight after a long winter. Meanwhile, video artist Nele Fack fills the entire stage with vivid images. A forest with a mountain and a cherry tree with a house beside it, full of old rooms and hidden doors. Can you already smell the aroma of apple pie wafting all the way up to the loft?