On 2 February 2011 De Nederlanse Opera (The Dutch Opera) performed the scenic world première of Peter-Jan Wageman’s Legende in the Amsterdam Music Theatre.

Wagemans originally based his opera on the famous nineteenth-century comic ‘The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck’ by the Swiss Rodolphe Töpffer.. He intertwined the comic stories about the butterfly catcher with other ‘legends’, which are far from funny, moreover, they are tragic and even mystical.

In a similar way, the composer characterised his three acts, without creating sharp boundaries between them. Using abundant richness in sounds, Wagemans created legends who aspire to exist on their own and who can be downright cruel and dangerous, right down to the bitter but perhaps also happy end.

Young Dutch composer Joey Roukens has often been spotlighted lately.

On 24 March 2011 the Royal Concertgebouworkestra conducted by David Robertson premiered Roukens’ Out of Control. Two days later, Scenes from an old memory went into première in Eindhoven. The work was performed by the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw.

In his music, Roukens strives after an idiom where current and past, diationics and chromatics, tonality and atonality are coupled. He tries to be open to as many types and styles of music as possible, regardless whether it concerns new or old styles, Western or Eastern music, art or kitsch, ‘serious’or popular music. For some time, Roukens was also active in the popular music field.