401DutchOperas Anthology Vol I

On Friday 10 April 2026, 4:00–6:30 PM, the Netherlands Music Institute (Nederlands Muziek Instituut) and 401DutchOperas will present the 401DutchOperas Handbook, Volume 1.

Location: Podium B, Bibliotheek Den Haag, Spui 68, 2511 BT The Hague
Time: 4:00–6:00 PM (free admission)
Programme: Book presentation and concert.

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On Saturday 25 April 2026, 4:00–6:30 PM, Castle Twickel (Delden) and 401DutchOperas will present the 401DutchOperas Handbook, Volume 1, followed by a concert featuring highlights from Jacob Jan van Wassenaer’s opera Les Noces de Vénus. This unique event takes place at Castle Twickel — the ancestral home of the Van Wassenaer family — which is normally not open to the public. The concert will take place in the castle hall, in the presence of the composer — represented by his oil portrait.
Location: Castle Twickel, Delden
Time: 4:00–6:00 PM
Tickets €35: Order ticket

The first volume of the 401DutchOperas Handbook was published in mid-January 2026 in the Dato Fund series of Uitgeverij Lecturis. The book is the result of more than fourteen years of research. It is based on archival work at the Netherlands Music Institute, the Royal Collections, Toonkunst and other collections, as well as the 401DutchOperas archive, which brings together all surviving audio documents of Dutch operas from the past 120 years — beginning in 1901, when the first domestic recordings were released in The Hague. In addition to unique (including pre-war) radio tapes and private recordings of rare performances, the principal audiovisual foundation of the book is the 401Concerts series, in which highlights from virtually all works included in this first volume have been performed. The accompanying CDs and downloads therefore allow listeners to hear fragments from almost all of the previously unknown works discussed in the handbook.

Contents of the book

Pages: 544+
Binding: Hardcover with dust jacket
Retail price: €40
Edition: Beautifully printed on fine silk-matte paper, richly illustrated and elegantly designed by Kelly Lakeman & Lilian van de Zande.

1. Chronological overview of Dutch opera composers
Beginning with the early period (Sweelinck, incidental theatre music, Vondel/Padbrué, Constantijn Huygens and publisher Andries Pels), followed by the Amsterdam Song School 1687–1715 (Hacquart/Buysero, David Petersen, Hendrik Anders, Johannes Schenck), the first half of the eighteenth century (Quirinus van Blankenburg, Willem de Fesch, Zingoni), and the period of the Stadtholders William IV–V (Jacob Jan van Wassenaer Obdam, Josina van Boetzelaer, Baron Gottfried van Swieten, Belle van Zuylen, Bartholomeus Ruloffs, Jean-André Colizzi, Johann Meissner, Johannes Just, the Mulligen brothers, and Mozart, whose first opera experiment begun in The Hague is brought to light). The volume concludes with the French Period (Bartholomeus Ruloffs, Jean des Communes and Ludwig van Beethoven, whose alleged birth not in Bonn but in Zutphen is critically examined).

2. Each composer is presented with an extensive biographical essay, followed by concise synopses of those operas of which at least one musical fragment has survived. Each summary concludes with a critical commentary and discography.

3. Timeline: a chronological overview of all operas composed in the Netherlands, including the many works whose music was lost in successive theatre fires or by other means.

An accessible handbook

The handbook is grounded in scholarly research yet written in an accessible style, with the aim of opening up these composers and operas to the widest possible audience. Dutch opera history includes both genuine masterpieces and thematically daring works, such as Just’s De Koopman van Smyrna, a musical protest against slavery. Wassenaer Obdam’s adaptation of Belle van Zuylen’s novel Le noble caused considerable controversy, and his ‘secret’ Masonic opera Les Nôces de Vénus proved to be a striking ode to military libertinism. In the eighteenth century, the Netherlands enjoyed a level of artistic freedom that often exceeded that of surrounding countries.

Pioneering work

The handbook challenges the persistent notion that nothing of artistic value was composed in the Netherlands in the field of opera over four centuries of music history. The opposite proves to be true. Audiences show clear interest in rediscovering historical works from their own cultural heritage — as demonstrated by the completely sold-out performances of Jan van Gilse’s opera Tijl at Soesterberg Air Base in 2017. Opera houses and organisations are generally unwilling or unable to take on the production challenges posed by pre-war Dutch manuscript scores (according to Pierre Audi, former artistic director of DNO). With the exception of Stichting 401DutchOperas, no opera institution in the Netherlands maintains an explicit heritage objective. From a commercial perspective, little is to be gained from the considerable effort required to prepare Dutch manuscript scores for performance, whereas audience capacity is far more easily secured with a ready-to-perform and copyright-free nineteenth-century success. In the twenty-first century, only Camerata Trajectina and 401DutchOperas have demonstrated the capacity to realise productions such as the recent world premiere of Beethoven’s Vestas Feuer in a reconstruction by Cees Nieuwenhuizen.

Beethoven in the 401DutchOperas Handbook?

The alleged Zutphen birth of Beethoven inspired a Beethoven Festival there under the leadership of Emile Engel, celebrating the composer — with a smile — as a ‘Zutphen native’. Seghers writes: “In the 401DutchOperas Handbook I traced this theory back to its sources and set out the arguments for and against, including the missing links. Readers may draw their own conclusions. Beethoven would not become Dutch even if he had been born at a fair in Zutphen in 1772. By that logic, the great Dutch poet Vondel (born in Cologne) would have to be called a German author. During my research, however, I became fascinated by the largely forgotten torso of Vestas Feuer when I discovered numerous unexplored sketches extending beyond the well-known first scene. I found a kindred spirit in the Dutch Beethoven specialist Cees Nieuwenhuizen, who transformed the torso and sketches into a historical performance score. Regardless of Beethoven’s exact birthplace, this reconstruction gives Vestas Feuer a legitimate place within the 401DutchOperas Handbook as a German-Dutch cultural work.”

A sounding book

Because no recordings exist of approximately 99% of the more than 400 pre-war Dutch operas, readers would otherwise never hear a single note of the works discussed. For that reason, 401DutchOperas began organising concert performances in 2015 in which highlights from as many Dutch operas as possible are performed and recorded. These recordings are published on CD and as downloads to complement the handbook. As a result, virtually every title discussed in Volume 1 is now represented by at least one recorded fragment.

Castle Twickel

The book presentation and concert on Saturday 25 April at Castle Twickel in Delden — ancestral seat of the Counts Van Wassenaer Obdam — is particularly special because it features highlights from Count Jacob Jan van Wassenaer Obdam’s remarkable opera Les Nôces de Vénus, conducted by harpsichordist Albert-Jan Roelofs. It also offers a rare opportunity to view the normally inaccessible interior of the castle. The monumental portrait of Jacob Jan will be prominently displayed in the castle hall, allowing the composer — for the first time in more than 270 years — symbolically to witness his own Masonic opus once again.

Throughout the year, additional presentations with concert programmes will take place at locations connected to the book.

René Seghers

René Seghers is a music philosopher. In addition to authoring the 401DutchOperas Handbook, Volume 1, he previously published Franco Corelli | Prince of Tenors (2004, USA), Jacques Brel | The Definitive (2011), the anthology of the International Vocal Competition ’s-Hertogenbosch (2014/2022), and the biography Hariclea Darclée | The First Tosca (2024). Completed biographies of Giuseppe Di Stefano and The Shangri-Las are forthcoming. He is currently working on Volumes 2–4 of the handbook, as well as several other book projects. Seghers contributes to the magazines Luister and Villa d’Arte and has published articles and photographs internationally in more than ten countries.

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The 401DutchOperas Handbook has been made possible in part by the Netherlands Music Institute, the City of Zutphen, the Prins Bernhard Fund, the G.H.G. Von Brucken Fock Fund, Stichting de Vergeten Componist, and the Rudi Martinus van Dijk Foundation.