Just in: Dutch cut all ties with famed director
OperaThe Amsterdam theatre group ITA has dismissed the Belgian director Ivo van Hove, following reports of ‘unacceptable behaviour’ under his leadership.
Van Hove, 65, resigned last year as artistic director but retained a €145,000 salary as artistic advisor, which has now been terminated.
The city-funded company’s entire board has also resigned. More here.
Van Hove has staged productions at the Metropolitan Opera, as well as on Broadway and in the West End.
Anybody who has ever worked with him knows he’s a monster. Never held accountable during his “hit” shows. Which have mostly been failures for years now: but the press adore him so he continues to reign and abuse people. Will Ruhr Triennial wake up? Will the Met? The National Theatre? No.
As far as I know, he is (was) a modernist, so: surfing on the enthusiasm of critics and planners who want to be seen as ‘up-to-date’ and ‘modern’, not realizing that modernism is an old hat by now.
Dear Norman,
I really wonder what this (‘theatrical’) article about the Amsterdam based ITA would have to do with your generally highly appriciated music website? Apart from Van Hoves incidental work for the Met…?
At the Vlaamse Opera, he staged a production of Alban Berg’s opera Lulu, as well as the complete Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner (2006–08). He put on a production of Janáček’s De Zaak Makropoulos, and Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta for the De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam. From 1998 until 2004, van Hove was festival manager of the Holland Festival, where he presented an annual selection of international theatre, music, opera and dance.