The festival will offer the world premiere of "Octavia. Trepanation”, a production by director Boris Yuhananov and composer Dmitri Kourliandski.
 

Announced as a co-production of the Holland Festival and Moscow’s Stanislavsky Electrotheatre, this Moscocw project made history before it even opened: the European Class A festival for the first time in many years was not merely a co-producer, but was also the initiator and commissioner of a new theatre production from Russia. Tours by Moscow and St. Petersburg collectives to elite world festivals such as Avignon or Vienna have become common in recent years, but in the case of “Octavia,” we are not talking about exporting a finished product, but about working together on a new show from scratch. This says a great deal about the fundamentally different level of confidence in its creators, and about each season’s growing interest in the West in contemporary Russian theater. The premiere of the production, based on the tragedy by Seneca and Lev Trotsky's essay about Lenin, and whose genre is defined as an "opera operation," will be held June 15-16 in the Muziekgebouw hall.
 

Romeo Castellucci and his Society Raphael Santi will show "Democracy in America" - a performance based on French politician Alexis de Tocqueville’s eponymous treatise on the XIX century, and still considered the canonical exposition of the ideology of liberal democracy. Robert Lepage and the Quebec company Ex Machina will bring the hit of the current festival season "887," and the lead and only role in this autobiographical drama will be performed by the director himself. Chances are the most popular hit of Amsterdam-2017 will be "Obsession," Ivo van Hove’s dramatization of the script of Luchino Visconti’s debut film. Jointly produced by the Dutch Toneelgroep and the London Barbican Theater, Jude Law stars in the production.
 

The Holland Festival program is traditionally built on the principle of interdisciplinarity, combining theater, music and the visual arts. Projects aimed at professional audiences coexist well with open-air events designed for mass spectators. The Netherlands opera will show the premiere of two directors who have headed the Holland Festival in previous years: Pierre Odier is preparing a stage version of "Vespers of the Blessed Virgin Mary" by Claudio Monteverdi, under the baton of French conductor Raphael Pichon, while Ivo van Hove takes on "Salome" by Richard Strauss with the Royal Concertgebouw and conductor Daniel Gatti. The dance program is headed by Alexei Ratmansky who brings to Amsterdam the "Shostakovich Trilogy," created in 2013 for the New York American Ballet Theater. Frenchman Boris Charmatz and his "Dance Museum" will present his latest work called "Dance of the Night," while Belgian choreographer Alain Platel offers a production called "Do not Sleep!" which is set to the music of Gustav Mahler.
 

The event of the dance program will be a new project by Dimitris Papaioannou, about which nothing is known at present except the premiere date. The production does not even a name yet although the newly-minted tickets are being sold at breakneck speed. The Greek choreographer’s name now speaks for itself.

Amsterdam, June 3-25