Public comments

I went home with shining eyes -
yes, it was intense, and at times I was shocked, but I also laughed often, enjoyed ...
I thought I didn't like opera... but I have to revise it !
it was my first 'real' experience of opera and opera itself....
I'm going to recover a bit... and reminisce at the same time....
Ellen Naedenoen

Princess Turandot will leave you gasping for breath. A powerful message, artfully woven into a magical jacket about being allowed to go your own way and finding it where you least expect it, that is Walpurgis' opera Princess Turandot. Incredibly clever how the director, Judith Vindevogel, manages to hold up an interesting mirror to an audience from four-year-old toddlers to adults with this adaptation. Even I, as a 15-year-old critical adolescent who surely feels too old for fairy tales, was left gasping for breath at the end.
A setting like a labyrinth, ominous drums and then suddenly the flawless, oh-so fragile, almost celestial sounds of Anne Maistriau, who impressively drew me into the world of Turandot and her resistance to live up to expectations with her wonderful voice. I caught myself grinning broadly when, what at first seemed like a terrible sacrifice, turned out not to be a sacrifice, but simple happiness. How simple and beautiful life can be!
Make sure you don't miss this performance! It is a-dem-be-ne-mend for the whole family.
Merel Beuk, 4 Gymnasium, Stedelijk Gymnasium Breda

I found Turandot quite an experience, to be in the middle of that with fear of your own head. Also a really good introduction to opera for the kids, who I feel don't get much to digest these days anyway.
Liesbet

It was especially good because opera and children is such a combination you don't come across. (...) Wonderful to see how my little daughter found it so scary at one point -'is that really going to chop his head off???'- only to beam with joy afterwards!
Els

It was a very nice show, the girl who played Princess Turandot sang very beautifully. The boy made very nice music. I thought it was definitely worth it!
I think the actors worked on this for a very long time, because it was very good!!! I would definitely want to go and see it again. I also really liked that we were allowed to sit on the stage, the benches were nicely placed so you could still walk on them! Super!!!
Kaat, 11 years old

Josse found the music fascinating. He listened and watched it with fascination. He still often imitated the singer at home!
Wouter

'Merci à toute l'équipe du spectacle "Princesse Turandot" pour ce moment d'une très belle intensité artistique et musicale ! Belle tournée à vous tous.'
Le Théâtre de Châtillon

Reviews

Debuting at 80. Julienne De Bruyn says goodbye with a children's performance
Courant 108, Sofie Joye, February-April 2014

High-education spectacle guaranteed!
Zone 03, Joni Horemans, January 2014

"Opera for everyone from 4 years old. Crazy, you think! Nay, mission accomplished"
Classical Central, Viviane Redant, 16/10/2013

Actress Julienne De Bruyn quits acting (video)
Antwerp Today, ATV, 11/10/2013

Curtain falls after 55 years on stage. 80-year-old actress Julienne De Bruyn bids farewell with youth opera
Gazet van Antwerpen, Karin Vanheusden, 5/10/2013

“A more than intimate affair and also an experience that few adults have been able to have in their childhood. Let the theatre continue to spoil the children“.
Theatremaggezien, Roger Arteel, 31/03/2013

“A beautiful interpretation of opera quotes and excerpts and an original theatrical form.”
Françoise Sabatier-Morel, Télérama

***/* “For theatre house HETPALEIS, soprano Judith Vindevogel created the musical performance Princess Turandot two years ago. That remarkable production is now followed by an audio CD and picture book. (...) So turn up the volume on your CD player, cast an occasional furtive glance at Godon's penetrating images and (re)discover together with your children the mesmerising power of song and music.”
DMMagazine, 06/02/2013

“Because Princess Turandot is an intimate performance and the children are in the middle of the event, they can experience the power and beauty of the human voice so closely that they are almost physically 'touched' by it.”
Princess/Princesse Turandot: Interview with Judith Vindevogel, The Mint Read the full interview here

"Princess Turandot forms the perfect symbiosis between text, image and music - where each part is indispensable to the whole.**** ”
De Standaard, 18/01/2013

Highly recommended for young explorers (4+)
THE CHOICE OF THE STANDARD: Youth theatre Princess Turandot, 08/01/2013

“Making opera vivid for the very young remains a task, but with Princess Turandot, WALPURGIS and HETPALEIS make the almost impossible come true.”
DM magazine tips: musical fairy tale, Bart Eeckhout, 05/01/2013

“HETPALEIS is the house par excellence where children are warmed up to theatre. That is its primary purpose, but we are not afraid to extend it to adults. To lend some force to our position, we add the performance 'Princess Turandot' at, a co-production of Walpurgis and HETPALEIS. The best definition for this production seems to us, a fairytale opera for the whole family (4+). To write the story, author Judith Vindevogel went in search of a starting point. She soon arrived at Giacomo Puccini's famous opera Turandot. The link between opera and fairy tale was immediately established.

The beautiful princess Turandot receives many marriage proposals. But she doesn't really want to get married. Just proclaiming that doesn't seem a good solution, so she devises a trick. Every prince who wants to marry her has to solve three riddles. An almost impossible task, but whoever manages to give the right answers becomes her husband. Whoever fails, his head off. The people find this state of affairs lurid and beg the princess to be reasonable and finally choose and marry a sweet prince.
The storyline is almost the same as Pucinni's piece of work of the same name. But as far as the music is concerned, the similarities end completely. For this production, the makers of Princess Turandot delved into the general opera repertoire as well as the operetta genre and the musical. Even a Neapolitan folk song is used. We do use the correct term as not all songs are performed in their entirety. This is not allowed as the performance would otherwise be too long for the children (45 minutes). Nevertheless, the two opera singers still sing quite a lot. Very recognisable pieces from famous arias by Pucinni, Mozart, Bizet, Brahms, Lully, etc... Of course, Prince Calaf's aria 'Nessun dorma' could not be left out, but the closing song 'Tonight' by Leonard Berstein provides the special moment. This song from the musical 'West Side Story' is sung almost in its entirety and in Italian, after a text adaptation by Lorenzo Carola. Both tenor Lorenzo Carola and soprano Anne Maistriau know how to win hearts.

After our account, you have already realised what a gem this 'Princess Turandot' is. That is true and yet our praise does not stop there. Stef Depover's stage design surprises young and old alike. The stage is reduced to a labyrinth between which the audience sits on cushions. A clever intervention that completely removes the stage-room barrier.

Did you think our fairy tale was already over? Wrong. We have another open canvas in store for musician on duty Rudi Genbrugge. He created beautiful new arrangements and performs the music live, on numerous instruments.

Rimba rumba rupsaso. who is afraid of Princess Turandot? Not us! So may we come back to the performance tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the day after that and...?

SHORT: Not a gem, but a PAREL! NOT TO BE MISSED!"
François Van de Brul, Mediawatchers.be, 20/03/2011

"All ways are good for entertaining four-year-olds. Opera and tape are less tried and tested methods. That makes them extra surprising.

'Toddler performances that make you feel like a child again': surely it is more a cliché than a practice. But they exist, such performances. Princess Turandot (by Walpurgis at The Palace) and Tape for toddlers (Tuning People with Fabuleus) prove that.

There is music in both performances. You can hear that in any preschool production, but here it is a starting point, the actual prelude to the magic of 'the first time'. Certainly at Walpurgis they take that scale seriously. Mozart, Wagner, Puccini: the greatest arias well up from the stern countenance of Princess Turandot (soprano Anne Maistriau). Majestically untouchable, she stands in a stylised setting, where big and small sit on cushions. Rarely did opera come so close, was singing so incantatory.
Of course, this comes with a bright little story. The frigid princess repels all her suitors by giving them a head's up. Such a marriageable damsel with resistance: that cannot last, thinks her old nurse (77-year-old Julienne De Bruyn). In the bright Prince Amor (tenor Lorenzo Carola) she finds her ideal supporter. That this admirer survives Turandot's riddles, and even real love comes of it, you take it. One can only hope that director Judith Vindevogel has won more preschoolers to opera with her versatile, balanced direction than she has damaged more for life with this explicit marital norm. Crazy how hard four-year-olds get caught up in that primal happiness between male and female."
Arias and itchy tape, Wouter Hillaert, De Standaard, 31/03/2011

The Palace: 'Princess Turandot' enchants little ones
Opera for preschoolers

Opera for a very young audience? Should be possible, they thought at Walpurgis. "Although it took the singer some getting used to seeing the toddlers singing along loudly," laughs Judith Vindevogel, director of the fairytale opera Princess Turandot.

The subsidised Walpurgis company has specialised in contemporary music theatre since it was founded in 1989. The house has a rich record of performances, but an opera for four-plus was new.
"It was actually an idea of Barbara Wijckmans, director of Het Paleis," says artistic director Judith Vindevogel, who wrote the text for Princess Turandot and directs. "I must say I hesitated. Do toddlers already go to performances, I wondered at first." (laughs)
Not much later, inspiration began to bubble up, and Vindevogel got the idea to start from Puccini's famous opera Turandot. "It had to be a though story date and kind of introduction to opera, so works by other composers are also covered. We draw from the entire repertoire between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries."

Narrator of 77
Judith Vindevogel rewrote the story of Princess Turandot in rhyme as much as possible, and performed a narrator with Julienne De Bruyn.
"I did not want a performance where there is singing all the time. Julienne De Bruyn is an older actress - she is 77 - who knits the musical line together with her narrative voice. You could call her the sheherazade (narrator of the stories from A Thousand and One Nights, ed.) of the play, albeit in a slightly older version. Her age also provides a nice contrast to the target audience: this is how young and old come together in one performance."
The first try-outs made it clear that a preschool audience is ready for opera. "I was afraid that the violence of a classical singing voice would put them off, or that toddlers would find the story scary. But I myself am amazed by the enthusiasm. So you see, a sugar-sweet pinkish story is not a must for preschoolers."
The enthusiasm is so great that people watch with open mouths, and toddlers sometimes start clapping and singing along loudly. "Our opera voices are not used to that. (laughs) But of course it is a nice compliment," the director concludes.
Eefje Rampart, Gazet Van Antwerpen, 18/03/2011

Interview by Judith Vindevogel at Babel on KLARA