About Onafhankelijk Toneel / Opera O.T.

For more than thirty years, Onafhankelijk Toneel (O.T.) has been making noteworthy theatre. The company is led by Mirjam Koen, Ton Lutgerink, and Gerrit Timmers - who come from the worlds of theatre, modern dance, and visual arts - and financial director Corry Prinsen. In the O.T.'s productions, these disciplines are put to innovative use, and since the eighties have also incorporated live video. At the end of the eighties, O.T. began producing opera alongside theatre and dance.

The company's hallmark is its interdisciplinary mixing of theatre or opera with visual arts and dance. O.T. is one of the foremost companies in the Netherlands, and not only in the field of opera. O.T. is a national leader in the performing arts and has a broad and very diverse audience. Its productions regularly win important theatre prizes.

O.T. works with a limited number of full-time staff members, almost all of whom work ‘behind the scenes’. The people on the stage are guests - actors, dancers, and/or singers. An opera production can require up to 150 people. For The Death of Klinghoffer, O.T. had 11 soloists, 24 choir members, 3 dancers, 2 extras, 60 musicians, and 55 other employees.

Since 2004, O.T.'s home is a spectacular new theatre in an upcoming Rotterdam neighbourhood, the Lloydkwartier, located on the River Maas. The main theatre is flexible and can be adapted to the directors’ every fantasy. The old theatre remains in use as a rehearsal space. It also provides extra space for educational purposes, since for the past several years the company has been very active in the educational area. The pupils are actively engaged in O.T.’s work, and then see a performance. The same model is used for adults in workshops for the general public.

For opera, O.T. branches out to bigger theatres, sometimes in co-production with De Nederlandse Opera or the Nationale Reisopera. O.T. has successfully performed in the Rotterdamse Schouwburg, the Muziektheater and Royal Theatre Carré in Amsterdam, and played the Nieuwe Luxor Theater together with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. As well as that, O.T. took an opera production to the United States, at the invitation of the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts.

A new opera based on Arthur Japin's book The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi is O.T.’s latest venture into opera, , with a libretto by the novelist himself and music by Jonathan Dove. The opening night was on 26 October 2007 and opened to enthusiastic reviews.